Chapter 426 — Blazing Flame Forest Sea

He had once moved underground unimpeded, yet this mirror-light could actually bind him and curb his speed beneath the earth. "Die! " The goat-headed god sneered.

The horns on his crown came loose and shot with two hisses into the lava, straight for Tu Xingfeng.

Just then the lava shifted, bulging upward into an enormous face, which opened a great mouth and swallowed the goat-headed god whole: "If I die, I take you with me!

" The Lame Old Man and the Alchemist looked into the earth: beneath the bright mirror's light, Tu Xingfeng deep below was pinned fast, and the two goat horns had run him through, one before and one behind. Tu Xingfeng's divine power was carrying the goat-headed god down into the earth with him, plunging toward the depths. "Lame Old Man, steal that mirror!

" the Alchemist cried in alarm.

The Lame Old Man raced over; his Heaven-Stealing, Sun-Swapping Hand was deployed, and the bright mirror vanished with a swish, hidden away no one knew where.

At once Tu Xingfeng below the earth could move again, and he fought with all his might to kill the goat-headed god. Without the mirror's light, neither the Lame Old Man nor the Alchemist could see how the battle below was faring.

The lava rolled, throwing up waves of fire; suddenly the lava rose into the air and congealed swiftly into an enormous palm, and then palms and fists and hammers and feet burst forth from that sea of lava, fixed in midair, breathtaking to behold. The Lame Old Man hurried to dodge, the Alchemist on his back, and shouted down into the ground, "Three-Inch Nail, stop fighting, come out quickly and let the Alchemist heal you.

.

.

" The Alchemist patted his shoulder lightly and said in a low voice, "No need to call him out.

Let him fight to his heart's content. When he was pinned just now, those two goat horns had already nailed his spirit fast; he has only one breath left, and when that breath is spent he will.

. . " He did not finish.

The Lame Old Man was stunned for a moment; then he clenched his teeth and ran toward the place where the Imperial Preceptor had fallen, without a backward glance. That sea of lava shook unceasingly; fantastic peaks and strange rocks rose up one after another, and the ferocity of the battle below defied imagination.

Suddenly the fighting beneath the lava sea subsided and grew still, leaving only the fantastic peaks and strange rocks that had sprung from the sea, taking the shapes of palm prints, fist prints, and the like. Splash. The lava parted to either side, and the goat-headed god walked slowly forth from the sea, his form growing taller and taller.

Thud, thud, thud.

He walked out of the lava sea step by step, the lava sliding off him like water and hardening into dark rock where it fell; his eyes were empty, a sight of utter desolation, yet still he radiated a world-shaking will to fight.

The Lame Old Man and the Alchemist were startled; but just then the goat-headed god toppled with a thud, a spiked great hammer buried in the back of his skull, and the dwarfish Tu Xingfeng, hanging from the hammer's shaft, fell with him, the two goat horns still run through his chest. The red fire in the eyes of this chief of the Earthwalker Clan dimmed by degrees. "The Fierce Fire Fruit from beneath the earth tastes like strong wine; let it flow down your throat and you can savor it all your life.

" The red fire in his eyes gradually went out.

He murmured, "I'm remembering that taste again; I suppose my life is nearly at its end.

.

. I should not have answered the call of the Seal of the Human Sovereign, but our forebears swore an oath, and the Earthwalker Clan will never break the oath of its ancestors.

. . " He closed his eyes, and sank with the goat-headed god into the lava, slowly swallowed by it.

The Lame Old Man, carrying the Alchemist, rushed to the Imperial Preceptor's side.

The Alchemist hurried down to treat him, when suddenly a light of incomparable brilliance burst from the darkness; the two looked up and saw the Dawn Boat sailing out of the dark, with a figure like a god of heaven standing aboard, holding a chain and leading a blazing sun.

"It's the girl Shen'er brought! She is the Sun Guardian! " The Alchemist recognized Yan Jingjing at once.

Heedless of his astonishment, he shouted, "Sun Guardian, come help us, quickly!

" Yan Jingjing's gaze swept the battlefield; four arms hauled on the chain, and the sun high overhead was dragged by her savagely powerful strength, falling from the heavens. On the Dawn Boat, the faces of tens of thousands of sun herders changed drastically, and they cried out together, "Sun Guardian, you must not! " The chief of the Sun-Herding Clan cried, "Little Ancestor, you cannot follow His Highness's example—" The sun had fallen halfway when it halted abruptly, and from its lower half burst streams of keenest golden light, shooting toward the gods of the High Heavens locked in battle!