473: The old man is cunning!

A light tap, a press.

It broke his Dao, wounded his Law, snapped his blade, and sent his Qi into turmoil, damaging his divine body!

The gap between them could no longer be described by mere "Realm" levels.

This was... a complete and utter crushing.

"Understand now?"

Lu Jiuyuan withdrew his finger and slowly stood up from the throne.

He did not emit any Aura, but the moment he stood, the entire Hall of Miraculous Mist—no, the entire Thirty-Three Heavens—seemed to "rise" an inch with his movement.

"You ask on what grounds."

"I will tell you now—"

He took a step forward.

With just one step, he appeared before Erlang Shen, the distance between them vanishing.

"On the grounds that my fists are bigger than yours."

"On the grounds that I see further than you."

"On the grounds that I bear more than you."

Lu Jiuyuan reached out his hand; this time, not a finger, but his entire palm.

The palm faced Erlang Shen, pressing down lightly.

The movement remained understated, calm, and composed.

But this time, Erlang Shen felt it.

He felt the... absolute helplessness that the Monkey King had experienced when he was "pressed" to the ground just moments before.

Space solidified.

Time stood still.

Law retreated.

The surging magic power within him, the Divine Power inherited in his Bloodline, the Dao power cultivated in his Primordial Spirit... all power became as if it didn't exist under this palm.

He couldn't even think.

He could only watch helplessly as that palm slowly pressed down toward the top of his head.

There was no earth-shattering roar.

There was no earth-shaking tremor.

There was only a muffled, soft sound, as if something had been "embedded" into reality.

"Thump."

Erlang Shen's knees went weak, and his entire body was forced to kneel by an irresistible, undeniable power!

It wasn't a simple kneeling.

He, along with his armor and soul, was "pressed" into the white jade floor of the Tongming Hall!

Centered on him, the white jade floor within a three-zhang radius sank three feet, forming a perfect circular crater.

The edges of the crater were smooth as a mirror, as if they had always been that way.

Erlang Shen remained in a kneeling position, firmly "embedded" in the center of the crater.

He tried to struggle.

The Heavenly Eye on his forehead opened wide, shooting out silver light!

Divine Power boiled throughout his body, and his silver armor clanged!

But it was useless.

That invisible palm still pressed on his head; despite all his Divine Abilities and thousands of transformations, he could not escape.

He couldn't even lift his head, forced to stare at the ground, at his own trembling hands, and at the wisps of golden divine blood dripping onto the floor and slowly spreading.

"Your... Majesty..."

He squeezed out the two words through his teeth, each one heavy as a thousand jun.

Lu Jiuyuan stood at the edge of the crater, looking down at Erlang Shen, who was pressed into kneeling.

"Now, can you listen to me properly?"

His voice remained calm, yet appeared incomparably majestic.

"Second Brother, I'm here! You should have told me earlier that you were going to rebel; I, Nezha, would have come to back you up!" a youthful, crisp voice came from outside.

Seeing the adorable, pink-carved, jade-sculpted Nezha, who looked like a girl but was a boy, stepping on wind fire wheels, his feet treading on two balls of flame, holding a fire-tipped spear in one hand and a qiankun circle in the other, he charged into the Hall of Miraculous Mist aggressively.

Before his voice had even faded, his lively eyes had already swept across the scene inside the hall,

Erlang Shen, kneeling, was firmly "embedded" in the center of the crater on the white jade floor, the Heavenly Eye on his forehead closed powerlessly, golden blood stains hanging from the corner of his mouth.

And Your Majesty the Jade Emperor was sitting on the chair, looking up at him.

The heroic smile on Nezha's face instantly froze.

Those big eyes widened.

The fire-tipped spear and qiankun circle seemed suddenly too hot to handle, and he "whooshed" them behind his back.

"Oh, oh my..." Nezha cleared his throat, and the expression on his face completed a perfect transformation from "aggressive" to "innocent" in an instant: "So... so Your Majesty is here..."

He blinked, trying his best to look like an innocent, lost, ignorant child who had mistakenly wandered into a Forbidden Ground.

"That... that..."

Nezha said, while inching toward the hall door, the flames on the wind fire wheels consciously extinguished, leaving only two obedient, docile little flames:

"I think I walked into the wrong place... I was originally going to... going to the Jade Pool to deliver freshly picked lotus pods to the Queen Mother of the West..."

The more he spoke, the quieter his voice became, but his footsteps grew faster.

Just as one of his feet was about to step out of the hall door,

Lu Jiuyuan casually raised his left hand, and toward Nezha, gently hooked his index finger downward.

"Little Lotus Powder, come back."

"Ah!"

Nezha was caught as if by an invisible hook on his collar, and with a "whoosh," he flew backward!

The wind fire wheels spun helplessly in mid-air, and the fire-tipped spear and qiankun circle clattered onto the ground.

He struggled, waving his arms and legs, but it was useless; he could only watch helplessly as he got closer and closer to the crater where Erlang Shen was kneeling—

Finally, with a "thump," he landed firmly on his knees beside Erlang Shen.

He wasn't "pressed" in; Lu Jiuyuan was clearly much gentler with him than with Erlang Shen, but he still knelt firmly, his knees making intimate contact with the white jade floor, emitting a crisp sound.

"Ouch!"

Nezha cried out in pain, grimacing and rubbing his knees, and looking up to see Lu Jiuyuan looking down at him, he immediately put on a cute (〃'▽'〃) smile: "Your Majesty... Your Majesty, were you looking for me?"

Lu Jiuyuan looked at him, smiling but not smiling: "Weren't you here to 'back up' your Second Brother?"

"How could that be!"

Nezha shook his head like a rattle-drum, "Your Majesty, you misheard; what I said... was that I came to 'support' you! Yes, support!"

"Your Majesty, look, I heard my Second Brother came to see you, and I was afraid he'd say something unpleasant and make you angry, so I rushed over to mediate!"

This kid... changes his face faster than turning a book page.

"Second Brother, why are you so useless? I haven't even had a chance to act, and you're already kneeling!" Nezha asked Erlang Shen, who was beside him, in a low voice.

"Poor us, the three big rebels of the Heavenly Court; to have taken such a miserable fall, only the Monkey King hasn't knelt yet!"

"Why did you come?" Erlang Shen asked in a low voice:

"I saw it!" Little Nezha said: "The old man played dirty; I was watching from outside, and you were fighting so fiercely in the Hall of Miraculous Mist!"

"At the time, I thought, since Second Brother is fighting the Jade Emperor, as his Junior Brother, I must come to back him up no matter what."

"So I just charged in."

"Who would have thought that while it looked intense from the outside, in reality, you were kneeling so readily inside... If I had known, I wouldn't have come."

Before Nezha finished speaking, he received an invisible blow to the head, making him grimace in pain.