Chapter 447: Bidding for More Time

　　Yan Luo heaved out a long, piercing battle shriek high-pitched enough to buzz Shi Mu’s eardrum.

　　The army around her was instantly galvanized! It was as if these soldiers, summoned via the Fallen Angel Desk, had received the same command without fault and charged towards the golden Jiao dragon, Ao Zu, in the middle.

　　At once, zombies, spartois and all kinds of undead creatures, jampacked in spaces, flooded towards Ao Zu like a water broke out of a levee. It was both magnificent and terrifying to look at the same time.

　　A look of surprise crossed the golden Jiao dragon’s expression, but it did not back away either—instead, it trashed its body like a serpent as it charged towards the legion of undead.

　　Psssch!

　　The golden Jiao dragon exhaled a large drove of draconic breath towards the undead as if an entire golden ocean was spilling out of its mouth. Those who were closest to the attack—about hundreds of them—were instantly caught in the golden flames, and within milliseconds they turned into dust and ashes.

　　That was not Ao Zu’s only mean of retaliation. Its four talons had been busy clawing left and right, projecting golden claw-like beams striking through the mass. Owning to the concentration of soldiers around it, every single strike managed to kill at least a small passel of undead army.

　　Ao Zu also put its great tail into a frenzied attack by swiping it violently like a gigantic bullwhip, with every single lash enough to remove a dozen of undead creatures—who had been aiming to strike behind Ao Zu’s back—from existence.

　　The golden Jiao dragon was not only a behemoth powering through the army—it was an intelligent behemoth, too. In a few minutes, it had managed to decimate at least thousands of the army. Watching its powerful retaliation from where he was, Shi Mu was admittedly horrified.

　　However, he calmed down quickly enough. Inhaling a deep breath, he moved, aiming to partake in the melee. He was planning to use the undead army as a cover for him to land actual, lethal blows!

　　“No! Get back—not now!” Yan Luo’s voice suddenly rang out.

　　“But your army is going to be completely exhausted very soon! This Jiao dragon is too powerful… It can’t even be contained by an army of millions,” Shi Mu said.

　　“Doesn’t matter to me. You take the time now to recover,” Yan Luo replied calmly. Then, closing her eyes, she muttered something under her breath, causing her body to scintillate in faint silver glow.

　　Shi Mu hesitated, eyeing the Jiao dragon for a while. He listened to her, nevertheless, retracting the golden scales in his body before producing two Mid-rank Spirit Stones in his hands to start replenishing his lost energy.

　　Time crawled forward by inches. The undead army may not fear death, but their fearlessness did not exactly translate into significant combative power as they stood before the mighty Jiao dragon. Almost a dozen was killed in every second.

　　A few minutes was all it took for Ao Zu to clear away half of the legion, and that included even the Earth-rank undead creatures. The sea within a few square-miles were filled with floating white carcasses and remains of the army.

　　Fortunately, killing them did wear out Ao Zu significantly. Its golden glow had dimmed while its aura had receded a lot.

　　Phooooh!

　　Another exhale of draconic breath had burnt twenty odd undead creatures charging towards it into crisp ashes.

　　Almost proportionately, a part of the gleam on the golden Jiao dragon’s body flickered a little before dying out. It may not have sustained any actual physical damage from facing these undead soldiers, but it did have to exhaust much of its powers.

　　Ao Zu turned its attention to Yan Luo and Shi Mu standing at a distance away, its eyes glinting sharply… like a herald to a major decision.

　　It was then when the space behind it shimmered—a skeleton that was almost transparent from head-to-toe suddenly dove towards it, its hand dual-wielding two transparent bone knives. It struck a blow at the Jiao dragon’s tail, right where a dark blot of scorching blackness was.

　　That spot was one of the few wounds the Toadphins had managed to inflict on the golden Jiao dragon with their venom earlier. The crystal skeleton jabbed through it quite effortlessly, sinking its knives all the way to their hilt.

　　A stinging pang coursed through Ao Zu’s senses, prompting it to let out an enraged billow. It lashed its gigantic tail and sent the crystal skeleton flying. Then, it stretched its gigantic tail in an attempt to coil it around the crystal skeleton before it could escape.

　　Ke-rack!

　　Under its pressure, the crystal skeleton was instantly ground into powder and dust, forever lost.

　　The golden Jiao dragon gave a low growl and forced out even more golden light from its body, pushing a dozen of armor-wearing skeleton warriors away from itself bia pure shockwaves. Then, it lifted itself up from the army and hurled towards Yan Luo.

　　It was just about to take off when four Earth-rank undead creatures blocked its path: a seven to eight yards long bony bird, a bony tiger with spikes protruding out of its body, an undead warrior donning a suit of golden armor and wielding a gigantic bone spear, and a large, towering skeleton completely in black wielding a jet-black blade—Wu Ye himself.

　　These four were the very last Earth-rank soldiers in the army. They had been readying themselves at the last of the charging army line, but when they noticed the Jiao dragon preparing to take off into the air, they charged to the forefront.

　　The gigantic bony bird flapped its wings-like bone structure and hurled out a concentrated pack of black wind beams accompanied with an ear-splitting racket. The bony tiger, meanwhile, barred its shiny, sharp teeth as it leaped into the air with flight-like speed, chomping down on one of the golden Jiao dragon’s claws. Then, the skeleton warrior in gold armor brandished its spear, its tip engulfed in a deep purplish flame, before striking at the golden Jiao dragon’s underbelly.

　　And finally, with his purple soul flames inside its sockets blazing—and being the strongest undead creature out of the millions summoned via the Fallen Angel Desk—Wu Ye swung his black blade like a lethal, black tornado aiming at the golden Jiao dragon’s head!

　　Ao Zu’s eyes flashed in gold and bellowed, “Get the hell out of my face, insignificant scums!”

　　A careless move would render itself completely locked into a battle with these four Earth-rank soldiers… and the rest of those mindless undead would easily seize the chance to throw themselves at it again. Ao Zu may not fear their attacks, but it was not happy to exhaust yet a large portion of its strength just to free itself again.

　　The golden Jiao dragon extended its two fore-talons so quickly that they turned into a flurry of golden claw apparitions, tearing through the air as they snaked towards the Earth-rank bony tiger and the undead warrior in golden armor.

　　Simultaneously, it flicked its tail, producing a flurry of afterimages, as it lashed towards the incoming black wind beams and the bone bird hovering in the air.

　　Pfft!

　　A spring of golden draconic breath shot out from its mouth towards Wu Ye.

　　Boom boom booooom! A stream of booming clasps sounded together at the same time!

　　Sparks of gold, grey and black scattered throughout the scene in every direction, enveloping the golden Jiao dragon and the undead creatures, sending out shockwaves strong enough to instantly crush a few hundred low-ranking undead creatures into instant powder.

　　A few seconds later, the sparks died, and one could finally see what had happened.

　　The gigantic bony tiger and the undead warrior in golden armor had been caught by the Jiao dragon’s claws, and as Ao Zu squeezed, the two met the same fate as the crystal skeleton from before.

　　However, the warrior’s purple-blazing bone spear did penetrate the Jiao dragon’s underbelly, causing a large pool of golden blood to form underneath the wound.

　　Meanwhile, the wind beams projected by the bony bird had all been deflected, while the creature itself had half of its body complete crushed. It may not have died instantly like its two comrades, but it was as good as out of commission as well.

　　The only one who managed too completely evade the Jiao dragon’s attack was Wu Ye, who had charged right before Ao Zu, landing a single fist and a strike of its black bony blade onto the Jiao dragon’s head.

　　Bang!

　　The Jiao dragon’s horn cracked under Wu Ye’s fist, while the latter’s sword sank deep into one of the fleshier part of the dragon’s head. The combined force was so great, it caused the Jiao dragon’s vision to suddenly black out!

　　“You—wretch!”

　　As soon as Ao Zu’s vision returned in the next millisecond, it opened its jaw wide to chomp on Wu Ye’s body, as if it was planning to grind the skeletal warrior with its own teeth. But before it could do that, the warrior’s body suddenly emitted a burst of grey light before exploding in its mouth.

　　The lower half of the body erupted into blazing grey flames while the top half of their body was completely enveloped in a large drove of grey light before it glided towards the sea below. Flickering, it melted into the ocean, completely gone.

　　Ao Zu froze for a while. It stared at the part of the sea where Wu Ye had snuck into, but it did not seem to plan for a pursuit.

　　The timespan since the attacks by the four Earth-rank undead creatures to Ao Zu’s lightning-fast, thunder-brutal retaliation took only about a few seconds. Yet again, it was enough to dim the golden gleam of its body. Combining with its bloodied underbelly and head, Ao Zu looked far from its erstwhile magnificent appearance.

　　It took a deep breath. Then, ignoring its new wounds, it wiggled its body violently and projected a golden ring out from its body to shock the swarming undead creatures away. Then, speeding ahead like a single trail of golden light, it lunged towards Yan Luo and Shi Mu.

　　Without the help of their Earth-rank superiors, the rest of the legion practically became casualties waiting to happen as Ao Zu powered through them into a mess of ashes.

　　Watching from far, Shi Mu frowned a little, gripping his Heavenly Meteoric Black Iron Blade without any sign of fear. With a hum, the blade emitted a dazzling black light that elongated into a ten-yard long blade of light.

　　It was then, Yan Luo’s eyes bolted open. Calm despite the decimation of her hard-earned army—especially those Earth-rank soldiers—she merely said dryly, “Buy me a bit more time please.”

　　Her words had barely left the air when her skin suddenly burst into silver lights.

　　Silvery-white flames started to burn from her body. Then, from the flames, an apparition of an ablaze maiden in silver armor surfaced from behind. Yan Luo swung her hands, and struck droves of purple flames from her own body to the apparition behind her.

　　Clink!

　　It was like the sound of a blade being pulled out from its scabbard. In the maiden’s hand, a purple spear manifested, radiating a strangely domineering, forceful mien.

　　Shi Mu’s pupils constricted at the scene. He had witnessed the same maiden back in his days in the Dead Spirit World, but the maiden in silver armor had more pronounced facial feature this time, while the purple spear in her hand now had a chilling, dangerous aura to it.

　　He only took a quick glance at the apparition, however, as he turned to face the incoming golden Jiao dragon with a determined expression.

　　Then, with his eyes wide open, he let out a deafening war cry, and his body was completely covered in golden scales as a pair of gigantic flaming wings sprouted from his back.

　　He sped forward like an arch of crimson shadow.

　　Meanwhile, Ao Zu watched Yan Luo and her silver armor maiden apparition in anger and shock. At the very next second, however, its eyes were filled with the sight of Shi Mu, both hands holding onto the hilt of his blade as he swung it downwards on its face.

　　Shi Mu had activated and pushed the Real Qi in his body to the crux of his power—behind him, the Crimson Ape Energy Construct manifested; His left hand was already completely scorched-black as white flames coursed upward of his arm to the Heavenly Meteoric Black Iron Blade, causing the black light beam of the blade to now spot a single layer of white glint.

　　With two colors encasing the blade, its edge became even sharper and more powerful than ever before. Even the air around it seemed to be shrinking from the blade in fear!

　　Ao Zu’s expression shifted slightly. Its instincts were kicked into a frenzied alert at the sight of the blade!

　　It extended its golden talon, wrapped in a shroud of golden light, towards the glinting blade of black and white.

　　Snap!

　　The gleaming, domineering blade-beam shattered instantly at the attack, but not without leaving a deep, shivering scar!