There he was, looking at a bunch of squiggly tendrils coming his way. Without much thought he instantly started dodging and throwing his holy energies around. To his surprise, the slimy appendages didn’t burn to cinders as they were supposed to. Instead of being demonic in nature as he expected them to be, they were filled with water energy.

‘So it’s a giant squid and not a demonic beast?’

“My my, you are a feisty one but how long can you last?”

“Could you stop talking like that? if my wife overhears she will think that I’m doing something bad.”

‘Where is that voice coming from, I don’t see her upper body.’

The Cerulean Empress’ voice echoed through this chamber. It was not coming from any particular direction which was confusing to his senses. While the tentacles thrashed about this room the voice continued to taunt him as if it was coming from the appendages themselves. Even after pulling out his sword and cutting a few, they quickly grew back while producing many thinner tendrils.

‘I need to find the core or main body, this thing is clearly just a part of this Empress… maybe this is part of her body?’

His new opponent had been hiding half of her body behind some carefully placed materials. Perhaps this was the form that was hiding under, a mass of ugly-looking tentacles. When he was cutting into them, he realized that they had a resemblance to the monster he met in the other pocket dimension. In contrast to that monster, this one didn’t seem to have any cores for him to pierce through.

‘Maybe the core is inside the humanoid part… Could these stretch through the entire palace?’

He wasn’t fighting something that he could defeat here and at this critical juncture, his focus needed to be on something else. Even though the tentacles were here to entrap him inside this chamber, this didn’t mean that there was no way out. The power source for the outside bubbly was still here and he just needed to get to it.

This item in question had been entangled by a large mass of squiggly tentacles. They needed all to go along with it and thus as time was running out, he raised his Qi to the zenith. His body started glowing with various lights as he tried to combine all the higher Daos that he knew. Gravitational force, Heavenly Lighting, Holy Energy, Wind Energy, and also Darkness were all combined to blast everything.

The soldiers that were chasing him were greeted by a massive explosion almost immediately after opening the gate. For a moment they could see Zhang Dong’s body blur from the spot to fly at a mass of tendrils. This was followed by a massive tremor before everything went white.

“That wasn’t the smartest move… but I got it somehow.”

Zhang Dong with part of his robe missing was hovering up in the air outside of the castle. In his right hand, he was holding a pink shell. He had plunged himself into the gross appendages and managed to grab this treasure during the explosion of spiritual energy. Instantly after grabbing it he utilized his teleportation escape to get to the save point he left outside. Now he was floating outside while looking at the castle before him and some sea creatures coming his way.

“HOW DARE YOU STEAL FROM ME!”

The voice of the Cerulean Empress echoed throughout the inside of this bubble as she had realized that her treasure was stolen. The shell that he was holding in his hand was more robust than he expected so he needed to act fast. Both of his hands pushed on it from both sides while increasing the gravity around it. Together with this Dao, he was able to shatter this power source and finally, the bubble popped.

“United Element Sect, your Patriarch orders you to attack!”

“Yes, Patriarch!”

Right on cue, a large group of cultivators started charging forward. A few large ships which were the size of the Argonaut moved in first and were followed by various large attacking formations. Some looked like golden serpents while others looked like blue turtles and were primed for defense.

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A huge fortress that seemingly was made from pure gold was right behind them. It was floating in the air and already had its cannons pointing at the swarm of creatures coming Zhang Dong’s way. The way was finally clear for his sect and it was time for the final battle to commence.

“You took your time… and what’s with that smell.”

“Don’t ask…”

Zhang Liena appeared next to her husband that was covered in bodily juices from the tentacles. While teleporting some of them had gotten stuck to his body and even his hair. Luckily now that they were away from the main body they were quite easy to burn away. Within a few moments, he managed to cleanse the smell away and also change into something more battle ready.

His body started glowing like a radiant star as his transformation took place. Now that the last boss had revealed itself there was no need to hold his trump card. Just like Liena and Huo Qiang, he was in possession of his own armor set. Liena’s was green while Qiang’s had a crimson tint to it. Zhang Dong on the other hand had his two staple colors, white and gold.

The explosion of energy could be even felt by these mindless cloned soldiers. Their charge forward was interrupted by the appearance of an armored man. While the shiny white parts took up most of the design the gold outlines popped out a bit more thanks to it. For a moment a sect of shiny white wings appeared behind him and gave him the appearance of an archangel. A fitting appearance as soon after a large group of angelic puppets poured out of the golden fortress.

While his forces didn’t have large numbers they made it up with quality. The clash started and all hell broke loose. The cloned forces seemed to not care about their well-being as they tossed themselves into the lines of the Qi-powered attacks. It was as if they had gone berserk after their leader had become enraged. It was the same with the generals that were now swinging those tridents around with no care for their allies.

Usually, they had some type of personality and were even able to speak. The battles his people had with them a month ago were still vividly remembered by them. Now on the other hand every one of the clones was like a rabid beast. They had no care for their well-being and were clearly running on instinct alone. While a berserk rage increased their ferociousness and attacking power it was also easy to read.

The sect members here had gone through many battles now. They were quickly able to adapt to this type of blind charge and took their time in luring the crazed clones into a disadvantaged position. After dancing around them when the time was right, many techniques filled the sky to deliver devastating blows that even they couldn’t resist.

‘They seem to be doing fine, I’m probably not needed here but the last Boss isn’t showing herself or she might not be able to…’

The scene that was playing out before his eyes was favorable to him but this made him restless. Whenever things seemed too easy, there was something that always went wrong. The Empress also wasn’t showing herself; instead, he could see some of those tentacles wiggling around in the palace. Something was happening there and he didn’t like it.

“Are they getting bigger?”

“Watch out, something is coming.”

Zhang Dong called out to his two allies and Qiang instantly responded while appearing inside his armor.

“Let it come then!”

“I don’t usually agree with this fool but this time he is right, we shall face this enemy together.”

Zhang Dong nodded at his wife and friend while smiling. Normally he would face this threat alone and probably get himself injured in the process. After years of fighting, he was not alone anymore. Many sect brothers and sisters were fighting together with him. Even if they weren’t as powerful as he was, they still all found ways of helping out in times like this.

When glancing to the side he could see all of them giving their all to push back the maddened clones and sea monsters. Even without the three main elders, they would be fine or at least buy them enough time until they got rid of the main enemy. This was the Empress or whatever this mass of tentacles was before them. At this point in time, they were slowly lifting the entire large palace into the air.

“So this is our target? I don’t like it… why does it have all those squiggly things… Disgusting.”

Liena frowned as she saw the tendrils squirming around. They were attached to thicker black tentacles that wrapped around each other to form something that looked like flesh. It was forming into something strange, a monster with a long fishtail similar to a mermaid but with many smaller centipede-like legs on the sides.

“This form…”

Even Qiang was confused about the look the Empress took. She was composed of black tentacles with a body bigger than the dragon they met in the lava region. The backside was shaped like a very long insect while the top part was more similar to a sea monster. The mouth even had something similar to teeth but they were quite black and made of some hardened tentacles instead.

“Be careful, this monster isn’t the real Empress, her true body is still somewhere inside of that castle.”

“So someone needs to get in there to get to the beast’s core…”

Zhang Liena looked at the palace that the monster was now wearing like some type of breastplate. It was clear to Zhang Dong that his wife would probably not want to get anywhere near those squiggly tentacles.

“I’ll do it, both of you just keep the monster busy while I get to the real body.”

“Sounds good to me!”

They all nodded at each other and finally the last battle was upon them. Perhaps after this was over, he could finally relax and focus on more important things like figuring out if the Azure Emperor was his enemy or ally…