Zhang Chen looked at his own Authority of Water Element. As the Authority of Water Element returned to its rightful place, all water attribute Divine Techniques were completely integrated and consolidated, all of them now categorized under water attribute Divine Techniques.
"All the water currents within a radius of a thousand meters, regardless of their level, the shackles of rank have been broken. I should be stronger now." Zhang Chen’s Primordial Spirit kept speculating and deducing.
"This coffin is so dangerous. What should we do now?" Beside him, Hu Li the Immortal felt his paws itching, his eyes filled with caution.
Hearing this, Zhang Chen activated the Authority of Water Element to sense the coffin, and immediately noticed something different about it. He saw countless water-blue threads, almost imperceptible to the naked eye, flowing over the coffin. That was the power of the Law of Water wrapping the entire coffin, enclosing it completely. Those countless threads wove together along some trajectory, forming unique patterns that enveloped the whole coffin.
"Interesting." Zhang Chen muttered to himself.
His Authority of Water Element could mobilize all power related to the Water Element, naturally including the Law of Water. He pointed at the coffin again, and the Law threads attached to the coffin collapsed and disintegrated one after another, vanishing into nothing.
The powerful backlash from before came precisely from the power of Laws, and the source of it all lay entirely within the coffin.
However, those Law threads were used to suppress the coffin’s Qi Mechanism, preventing it from leaking out and resonating with the outside world. Their main function was suppression, not slaughtering intruders.
As Zhang Chen pointed out, Hu Li the Immortal clearly sensed that some inexplicable, profound change had occurred in the coffin before him, but he had no idea what exactly had happened.
He then heard Zhang Chen say, "The Innate Water God sealed himself to prolong his life. His Qi Mechanism and Divine Power must be in extreme slumber and will absolutely not leak out to serve as protection. The backlash we just encountered was merely a protective method he left behind while still alive. Now that this method has been broken by me, next is to open the coffin and haul the Innate Water God’s corpse out of it."
As Zhang Chen spoke, his palm fell onto the coffin, intending to push open the lid. Yet who would have thought that the coffin lid didn’t budge in the slightest; Zhang Chen couldn’t move it at all.
Zhang Chen operated the Transportation Technique, but the coffin lid was like a great mountain; his Mountain-moving Technique was nothing more than an ant trying to shake a big tree, nearly impossible to move.
"I can’t push it open." Zhang Chen turned his head to look at Hu Li the Immortal.
Hu Li the Immortal knew it was time for him to exert his strength. He rolled up his sleeves, stepped forward, and said, "Let me!"
Hu Li the Immortal hooked his hands around one end of the coffin and suddenly exerted force with both arms. The coffin lightly trembled and showed faint signs of shaking.
"What a heavy coffin. Truly worthy of being cast from Innate Jade Stone; it must weigh hundreds of thousands of catties." Hu Li the Immortal’s face flushed red, blue veins bulged on his tender arms, and he bared his teeth, revealing small tiger fangs. With a sudden roar, the coffin’s trembling intensified, and in the next moment he gave a mighty shove, flipping the coffin lid off.
"It’s open!" Zhang Chen’s eyes lit up.
Hu Li the Immortal and Zhang Chen hurriedly stepped up, standing before the coffin and leaning in to look. They saw the coffin filled with deep blue liquid, and within that deep blue liquid actually floated a small coffin. The small coffin rose and sank in the current, yet failed to stir up even the slightest ripple.
"There’s actually another layer of coffin inside the coffin. That coffin contains the Power of Space; there must be a separate world within." A thoughtful look flashed in Zhang Chen’s eyes.
"What is this liquid?" Hu Li the Immortal fixed his gaze on the liquid. Anything that an Innate Water God would place inside his coffin definitely wasn’t something simple.
"Could it contain the mysteries of Great Creation?" Hu Li the Immortal extended a finger and lightly tapped the liquid inside the coffin. In the next instant, a miserable scream rang out. The fingertip that had touched the liquid had, in that instant, turned to bare bone.
"How could this be?" Zhang Chen looked at Hu Li the Immortal’s bone, flowing with golden luster. That was the Golden Body he had tempered by transcending the Three Calamities, already transformed in essence by tribulation, yet now it had been directly broken.
"This water current is extremely dangerous! This water eats people!" Hu Li the Immortal’s face was filled with horror.
He was an Eleventh Tier powerhouse. Though his skin was not as immortal and indestructible as his Golden Body bones, it was still comparable to Steel Bones. Yet in the instant he touched that liquid, his flesh was eroded away without the slightest resistance. How could he not be shocked?
Power that could invade his flesh in an instant could also harm his bones, even to the point of melting them down.
"What the hell is this? It’s even more overbearing than sulfuric acid." Zhang Chen muttered inwardly.
On the path of cultivation, the physical body is of paramount importance. Once the body is destroyed or damaged, unless one has means to resurrect the dead and regrow flesh over white bone, it is likely impossible to repair.
Back in the day, even when Nezha’s physical body was destroyed, he still needed lotus roots to recast his body, let alone Hu Li the Immortal now.
The physical body suffering such heavy damage is absolutely not something that can be easily repaired.
"Brat, don’t you have quite a few tricks with Innate Divine Water? Can you control the Innate Divine Water in front of us?" Hu Li the Immortal asked.
"This isn’t Innate Divine Water! And it’s not a stream of water either!" Zhang Chen replied.
If it were Innate Divine Water, his Authority of Water Element would have sensed it long ago. At this moment, Zhang Chen sensed the Qi Mechanism inside the coffin and his heart couldn’t help but jolt. The liquid in the coffin merely existed in the form of water, but it was absolutely not any kind of water.
"This liquid is extremely dangerous. If we want to get that inner coffin floating in the liquid, we have to smash the outer coffin first and release the liquid inside." Hu Li the Immortal gritted his teeth in pain.
Zhang Chen took a look at the rock-hard Innate Jade Coffin. Just as he was about to speak, he suddenly saw the liquid inside the coffin start to quake, sending out ripples one after another.
Before the two of them could discuss a countermeasure, they saw the trembling inside the coffin grow higher and higher, the frequency of the vibrations also increasing more and more. The next instant, the liquid emitted a buzzing sound, flew out of the coffin, and came surging toward Zhang Chen and Hu Li the Immortal, blotting out the sky.
"Fuck! How the hell is this liquid? This is obviously bugs!" Zhang Chen, who had mastered the Beast Taming Technique, finally recognized the origin of that "liquid" at this moment.
That was clearly countless insects so small they were almost microscopic!
It was just that the bugs’ level was too high; Zhang Chen’s Beast Taming Technique couldn’t control them at all.
"Bugs?" Hu Li the Immortal froze for a second. The next moment, the Qi of Geng Metal around his body flashed, and an extremely dazzling edge of light flared up, slashing toward that swarm of bugs that filled the sky.
Yet once Hu Li the Immortal’s Geng Metal Light fell into the swarms of bugs, it was actually gnawed away by them completely, without stirring up even the slightest ripple.
"What kind of freakish thing is this? It can actually devour even my attacks?" Hu Li the Immortal refused to accept it. The next instant, he suddenly opened his mouth and let out a heaven-shaking tiger’s roar. Along with that wind howl that shook the mountains and forests, the bugs surging toward them suddenly stalled, their movements pausing as they were struck with a brief dizziness, then crackled as they fell to the ground.
"They possess the power to devour life and energy, they can even devour my offensive Divine Techniques, but they’re not without weaknesses. The soul is their weakness." There was a hint of pride in Hu Li the Immortal’s voice.
"Everything in this world has a weak point; the stronger something is, the bigger its flaws." Zhang Chen finally let out a breath of relief. "This thing truly lives up to being the Guardian Beast the Innate Water God used to guard his great tomb. It’s innately incomparably powerful. If Old Ancestor didn’t master powers that attack the soul, we’d probably be dying here this time."
While the two were speaking, another buzzing sound rang out. They saw the bugs scattered on the ground actually revive again, awakening from that buzzing and once more surging toward the two of them.
"Damn it, that one tiger’s roar of mine actually didn’t shatter their souls." Seeing that green "mist" sweeping toward them like a tidal wave, Hu Li the Immortal’s heart pounded in shock. The next second, the Qi of Geng Metal around his body exploded, terrifying sword lights slicing through the void as they hacked down toward that green mist. Yet all of his Divine Techniques fell into the mist without causing the slightest ripple, directly getting devoured clean.
"These bugs aren’t afraid of energy attacks; all energy and Divine Techniques are treated as food and devoured by them." Zhang Chen watched clearly from the side and hurriedly called out in warning.
"These bugs devour the flesh and blood of living beings, devour the power of Divine Techniques, and they’re not even afraid of attacks on the soul. They practically have no weak point. No wonder the Water God used them to watch over his own coffin—these bugs are practically invincible." As Zhang Chen spoke, he hefted Tushan Qing and retreated backward.
"I wonder if they’re afraid of physical attacks." Hu Li the Immortal drew a Treasure Sword from his waist. They saw him grip the sword and slash it toward that green mist. But the moment the sword touched the green Qi Mechanism, it was like a stick thrust into a dye vat; the Treasure Sword was stained with a layer of green light, and in just a short instant it was completely devoured, turning into nothingness.
"What terrifying bugs, they’re not even afraid of physical attacks." At this point, Hu Li the Immortal also scrambled backward in a panic. "Brat, I’m out of tricks. Let’s see if you have a way to deal with these bugs."
Hearing this, countless thoughts flashed through Zhang Chen’s mind. He did have many methods he could try—for example, the Celestial Measuring Ruler could open up a pocket of void to trap the bugs.
Or he could use his Power of Reincarnation; maybe it had a chance to suppress these bugs.
"Do you know where these bugs come from?" Zhang Chen asked the Great Freedom Celestial Demon.
The Great Freedom Celestial Demon was born in a Mysterious unknown era; maybe it knew the bugs’ flaws.
"I do know where these bugs come from. Brat, you’ve stirred up something this freakish; you’re in big trouble." The Great Freedom Celestial Demon indeed knew the origin of the bugs. Upon hearing Zhang Chen’s words, it responded in his ear.
"Even if an Ancient Divine Spirit encounters such a freakish thing, it would back off thirty miles and wouldn’t dare provoke it lightly." The Great Freedom Celestial Demon Dao.