“The five element altars… you have to shut down the five element altars if you want to stop us.” Inside the barrier around the Office of Strategic Deception, the two imposters had already confessed. Their skins were torn and pulpy all over after their bodies broke down from watching guichu videos and listening to electronic music. They were puppets at the core, and were like glutinous rice wrapped in leaves after cloning.

　　However, under a powerful attack from two major “weapons of physics,” their leaves had fallen apart.

　　“Please, don’t do this!” The imposters begged for mercy. They were stripped of their false appearances to reveal their inner cores, which were composed of a crystal-like substance which none of the people present had seen before.

　　“Who are you to tell us what to do?” Grenade-Throwing Senior Immortal stared at the imposters in front of him, the Royal Scepter in his hand.

　　“This should be something from the Palace of Mirrors; my guess is that it’s some sort of compound substance.” Fatty Luo crouched down to touch the crystal, and one of the imposters rolled around on the ground in pain. “To be able to create this sort of substance, this person is truly a genius.”

　　Fatty Luo’s admiration was sincere.

　　As a renowned expert in research on magic treasures, Fatty Luo had previously been officially invited by President Qi to study the human replica magic treasure Head of State 001, and he thus knew a thing or two about human cloning and bionics.

　　Finding a compound substance in the cultivation world suitable for making man-shaped puppets had always been a critical scientific research issue. The structure of the human body was very complicated, and even if lotus root or spirit clay was used to create prosthetics, these had a shelf life and wouldn’t last in the long term. In addition, these prosthetics were relatively fragile; cultivators who switched to them were as good as giving up on body techniques, and couldn’t fight as freely as other cultivators.

　　“What are the five element altars?” Grenade-Throwing Senior Immortal asked again.

　　“They’re part of a magic array which maintains the stability of the Palace of Mirrors, but which are currently under our control. Once the Five Elements Transformation Spell is activated, the Palace of Mirrors will merge with the real world: the two main worlds will become one, inseparable from each other.” The imposters told them everything.

　　“Looks like we’ve really run into trouble this time.”

　　Grenade-Throwing Senior Immortal frowned deeply, the Royal Scepter in his hand.

　　They then obtained a map of the Palace of Mirrors from these imposters. The five altars were located in five different positions.

　　“To activate the Five Elements Transformation Spell, it looks like the Five Elements Array has to be shut down at the same time – but shifu should be able to do it, right?” In Wang Ling’s bedroom, Odd Zhuo was also observing the situation at the Office of Strategic Deception via Book of Sage Immortal’s screen.

　　“Perhaps not.” Book of Sage Immortal seemed concerned. “If this was a normal Five Elements Array, my lord’s strength would naturally be more than enough. However, this Five Elements Array holds an entire world together – intruding on an array consumes a great deal of my lord’s spiritual energy. With his strength sealed, shutting down the five array points simultaneously will indeed be difficult. But if the seal is removed and his spiritual energy bursts out, the Palace of Mirrors and Earth might be instantly destroyed.”

　　“No way…” Odd Zhuo couldn’t believe it.

　　…

　　Meanwhile, in the Palace of Mirrors, Wang Ling had also realized this problem.

　　The black shadow army guarding the altars actually wasn’t hard to handle – the real difficulty was that he had to shut down all five altars at the same time. Counting in Mother Juan, Dog Two, Wang Ming and Guo Ping, they had four people and one dog, which was just nice. The problem, however, was that except for him, the other four combined weren’t strong enough to shut down even one altar.

　　Wang Ling had to admit that this was his first time feeling torn.

　　He thought he could fix everything with his own strength.

　　What should he do?

　　Undo the seal on his power?

　　As long as he undid the talisman seal on his power and used the Great Cloning Spell to send clones to the five altars, it would be no problem at all for him to shut down the five altars with his spiritual energy at its peak.

　　But the issue was whether he could truly control his spiritual energy output…

　　If it went berserk –

　　The consequences would be unimaginable.

　　Wang Ling sunk into silence for a long moment in front of the Altar of Water.

　　He was wondering whether to undo the seal.

　　In that moment, facing an unprecedented dilemma, Wang Ling felt deeply unsure.

　　Was he thinking too highly of himself?

　　It turned out that there actually were things he could feel helpless about…

　　Wang Ling gazed at the Water Altar nearby, and his eyelids dropped slightly.

　　A cool breeze whooshed through the ocean of reeds next to him, and it was as if the entire world fell silent.

　　“Enemy attack! Enemy attack!” Up ahead, some of the black shadow soldiers guarding the Altar of Water noticed Wang Ling and the others and rushed to surround them.

　　Guo Ping and Wang Ming immediately entered battle mode as several cannon muzzles appeared on their armor as they aimed at the back shadow army.

　　“Why did Student Wang suddenly stop moving?” Guo Ping was baffled by Wang Ling’s sudden hesitation.

　　“Who knows. He’s sensitive sometimes.” This was also a huge headache for Wang Ming. He thought he knew Wang Ling well, but the truth was that even after hanging around Wang Ling for so long, there were times when even Wang Ming felt that Wang Ling was like a stranger. Perhaps, his little brother had never truly opened his heart to anyone.

　　“Insolent hooligans, you dare invade the Altar of Water?” At that moment, a figure emerged from the marsh up ahead. This was the guardian envoy of the Altar of Water, Yin Jiuquan, who was also a member of the black shadow army.

　　The original guardian had been killed when the black shadow army seized this place.

　　Marked with Fate Dao runes all over his body, Yin Jiuquan glowed with tremendous power. “You bunch of hooligans, you have no chance of winning. You’ll need to use all your strength to deal with me! You can’t stop Master’s plan to merge the worlds. As long as one of the five altars is in operation, the others can be instantly restored even after they’re destroyed. The probability of shutting down the five altars at the same time is zero!”

　　As he spoke, he got ready to attack Wang Ling.

　　But as he was about to activate the Fate Dao runes, there were several massive waves of energy in the air, and several golden passageways opened!

　　This was Lord Ma’s transmission ability!

　　The sound of many voices then came out of the space tunnels. “Brother Ling, to stop the black shadow army, you have to shut down the Five Great Altars at the same time! All our Office of Strategic Deception’s personnel are coming to help!”

　　Then came Gu Shunzhi’s voice. “Ling Zhenren, I, Gu Shunzhi, bring aid from the ten major clans of the Domain of the Gods!” He stepped out of the space tunnel, and was followed by none other than Wang Zhen and Liu Qingyi.

　　“Ling Zhenren, on Demon Saint’s command, I, Shen Wuyue, bring battle aid from the four territories!”

　　As soon as Shen Wuyue finished speaking –

　　A pure and holy light appeared in the sky, and a Winged God slowly descended from the clouds.

　　The god’s voice resounded in the vast sky. “Ling Zhenren, on Lord Thousand-Winged God’s command, I have come to aid you…”