But in the very next instant, the silver arcs across the giant turtle's surface suddenly blazed to life. Its upper and lower claws strained apart with all their might, and amid a thunderous roar, they forcibly tore through the fire ropes. Then, with another movement, it transformed into a ball of lightning and slashed downward.
Madam Wan's heart clenched. She swiftly formed a seal with one hand as the crown of her head split open and a green wooden shield flew out. At the same time, the colossal black lion behind her roared toward the sky, and a beam of black light shot forth.
With a deafening boom, the giant turtle struck the wooden shield. It bounced off at first, but then the black light beam pierced clean through it, and finally, with a flash, it collapsed and dissipated.
Seeing this, no joy appeared on Madam Wan's face. Instead, her expression grew even more grave. She shook both sleeves, and a sharp whistling filled the air as a dense barrage of black flying needles shot out, forming a rolling dark formation that blanketed the surrounding void.
The golden giant crab's casual strike alone had carried such tremendous power—how could she not regard it as a fearsome enemy? For the moment, she could no longer spare any attention for Fairy Ice Soul on the other side.
Daoist Qingping witnessed all of this, his heart seething with shock and fury. He had never expected that something so certain to succeed would be interrupted by an outside party.
However, having witnessed the terrifying power of the golden crab's earlier strike, he knew perfectly well that Madam Wan—his supposed ally—could not be relied upon for the time being. Steeling himself, he shook his horsetail whisk once more, and green silk-like threads twice as dense as before shot toward the opposite side with sharp hissing sounds. At the same time, he raised his other hand, and a misty green mirror transformed into a ball of green light and flew from his grasp.
The mirror wavered slightly, and within it, a black-and-white Eight Trigrams pattern emerged. Then, with another flash, it appeared directly above Fairy Ice Soul.
With a rumbling boom, wooden rods just a few inches long suddenly shot out from the black-and-white trigrams. Growing in the wind, they transformed into wooden stakes several zhang long, their surfaces covered in drifting green runes, and smashed downward toward the ice barrier.
It was clear that the Daoist had also noted that Fairy Ice Soul had recently advanced to the Mahayana stage. Even with his strength alone, he should have a good chance of capturing her—which was why he had launched such a devastating offensive from the very start.
Under the combined bombardment of the green silk threads and the massive wooden stakes, the originally unwavering ice barrier began to show signs of strain after only moments. It flickered wildly amid the thunderous impacts, and finally, after several sharp cracks, faint white fractures appeared across its surface.
Seeing this, Ice Soul inside the barrier showed little panic. Instead, she took a deep breath, sat cross-legged, and formed a seal with both hands. A shimmer of crystalline light suddenly shot from the crown of her head, swirling and condensing until it took the form of a snow-white giant turtle phantom roughly a zhang in size.
The turtle's back was covered with countless translucent ice spines, and its entire body radiated an incomparably frigid aura. The moment it appeared, it opened its great maw and sprayed torrent after torrent of pale white cold energy, which silently merged into the ice barrier.
The somewhat dimmed barrier, upon absorbing this cold energy, immediately blazed with renewed frost light, and the cracks that had just appeared on its surface sealed shut in an instant.
The entire ice barrier, under the relentless assault, had actually regained its original stability.
"The Frost Primordial Turtle!"
The moment Daoist Qingping made out the ice turtle's appearance, his face changed and he cried out involuntarily. But after a brief moment of deliberation, he immediately began forming hand seals without hesitation. With the word "Swift!" on his lips, a wash of iridescent light swept behind him, and a colossal Daoist phantom materialized out of thin air.
The Daoist phantom wore robes inscribed with a black-and-white Taiji pattern. The moment it appeared, countless specks of starlight surged inward from every direction, pouring into the phantom's body and causing it to swell over tenfold in size until it reached more than a hundred zhang in height.
With a grim expression and a low shout, Daoist Qingping forcefully drove his spell. The colossal Daoist phantom behind him simply rubbed its palms together, then raised them simultaneously. Dense white thunder-fire materialized at once, and with a tremor, it all rumbled forward in a devastating wave toward the opposite side.
Seeing this, Ice Soul's expression shifted. She similarly channeled her Magical Power, and the profound turtle above her head abruptly swelled several sizes larger, its exhaled cold energy growing twice as thick.
After absorbing the greatly intensified frost light, the ice barrier managed to barely hold its ground against the combined assault of the green silk threads, wooden stakes, and thunder-fire.
Seeing this, Daoist Qingping silently cursed his luck.
He now realized that although his opponent's cultivation was not deep, her ice-attribute divine abilities were truly extraordinary. Moreover, with her purely defensive posture, it would be nearly impossible to defeat her in a short time.
Left with no alternative, he steeled himself and simply drove all three of his divine abilities at full power, bombarding the ice barrier without cease, hoping to exhaust her Magical Power as quickly as possible and then strike a decisive blow.
As for the golden giant crab and Madam Wan nearby—one wreathed in crackling silver arcs, the other shrouded in rolling black energy—they were locked in a fierce battle that showed no signs of being decided anytime soon.
Meanwhile, on Han Li's side, after an initial round of probing exchanges, both sides had finally begun to unleash their true power.
The giant ape realized that punch shadows alone were completely ineffective against the Nine-Eyed Blood Toad that Xiao Ming had transformed into. Its enormous eyes flashed with cold light, and golden light blazed behind it as a three-headed, six-armed Dharma Avatar materialized. Then, as spiritual light condensed throughout its body, it transformed into the Brahman Saint Golden Body with its six eyes tightly shut. Its three faces were identical to Han Li's, yet each bore a different expression.
The giant ape let out a long howl, slapped the top of its head with one hand, and the crown split open. A rush of black energy surged out, and with a swirling motion, it poured into the Golden Body and vanished.
The Brahman Saint Golden Body shuddered, and the instant all six eyes snapped open, its body flickered and vanished without a trace.
The next moment, spatial fluctuations rippled above the Nine-Eyed Blood Toad, and the Brahman Saint Golden Body, standing over ten zhang tall, materialized with eerie swiftness. Its six palms simply grasped at the void, and each hand conjured a golden blade three to four zhang long. With a few sweeping motions, countless blades of cold light erupted forth, and after a rapid churning, they merged into a vast golden hurricane that swept downward.
Before the golden hurricane even truly descended, sharp hissing golden blade radiance shot out from within first, their keen edges seeming as though they could slice the very void to shreds.
Xiao Ming's heart lurched. Not daring to recklessly use the blood toad's long tongue to block these golden blade strikes, the transformed giant toad instead let out a strange croaking cry. Dense silver runes appeared on the bulging area of its back, and they flew off its body, weaving and flickering together in a frenzied dance.