173: Chapter 173 It's alright now...

"Lu Cheng!!!"

Qian Shuying's roar exploded from the room, and the entire alloy wall trembled.

She stepped out from the shattered door frame; with every step she took on the ground, the alloy floor plate beneath her feet dented into a shallow pit.

The tiger stripes on her body grew once more... five... six... all the way to ten...

Her pupils had completely transformed into those of a tiger.

Slit pupils.

Inside her amber irises, it was as if a fire were burning, and a ring of blinding white light exploded around the edges of her pupils.

A solid phantom of a White Tiger manifested behind her!

The tiger head hung low, its front paws pressed against the ground. The thick-knuckled White Tiger claws scraped five deep grooves into the alloy plate, the metal at the edges of the grooves curling up under some invisible force.

The White Tiger moved.

It raised its head, opened its massive maw, and let out a silent roar.

A visible white shockwave exploded through the air, sweeping across every corner of the altar hall. The Source Power array patterns on the walls flickered violently, and a pile of rubble and pipe fragments shook down from the ceiling.

The Golden Toad's movements paused, and it slowly turned its head.

That pair of golden eyes locked onto Qian Shuying.

"You..."

The Golden Toad spoke.

Its voice was deeper than it had ever been before, and every expression on its face vanished in the same second.

Only one very pure emotion remained.

Fear.

"White Tiger..."

The Golden Toad's body began to fade. Starting from the tip of its tail and spreading toward the center of its body, the faded parts turned into a dull, dark bronze color, like old copperware left in a basement for decades without being cleaned.

"Five hundred years... it has already been five hundred years!!!"

The Golden Toad's voice suddenly rose, becoming shrill and ear-piercing.

It recoiled a step, its two hind legs stepping into the Pool of Ten Thousand Wishes. The golden liquid in the pool was stirred up, splashing onto the stone platform beside the pool and emitting a pungent, fishy odor.

"You are still hounding me!!!"

Qian Shuying did not answer it.

Her lips were moving, chanting a very ancient syllable. The tail rhyme of each sound was drawn out long, sounding like the incantation of some sealing technique.

With every syllable she chanted, the White Tiger stripes on her body glowed brighter, and the White Tiger phantom behind her pressed forward one step.

On the ceiling of the entire underground space, a seal was re-condensing.

An object entirely snow-white slowly descended from a crack in the ceiling.

It was huge.

About half a person's height, shaped like a square seal.

The surface of the seal was densely carved with seal script inscriptions, and every character was burning with a kind of cold, white flame.

The knob of the seal was a crouching White Tiger, its head held high, holding a bead in its mouth. The bead was rotating slowly, and with every rotation, it released a ring of white shockwaves in all directions.

The Suppressing Seal cast from the divine bones of a White Tiger.

It had broken through the layers of restrictions deep within the Qian Family on its own, forcefully tearing through space to rush over.

The moment the Golden Toad saw the Suppressing Seal, the fading speed of its body surface suddenly accelerated.

Spreading from its tail to its waist, from its waist to its front paws, the dark golden light peeled away layer by layer.

"No!!!"

The Golden Toad shrieked. It turned its body violently, no longer looking at Lu Cheng, nor caring about the alienated researchers squatting on the ground, and pushed off with all four legs, charging toward the dome.

Its head collided with the seal, creating a ring of bone-colored shockwaves.

The seal remained unmoved.

The light of the Suppressing Seal only grew brighter.

The Golden Toad was bounced back, crashing into the edge of the altar and smashing an entire row of stone platforms.

It scrambled up, its mouth corners stretched to the limit. That already absurdly large mouth tore the golden skin on both sides of its cheeks, revealing the dull, magma-like golden liquid slowly flowing beneath the skin.

"You bunch of ants!!!"

The Golden Toad's eyes turned blood-red, like a trapped beast fighting.

It opened its mouth.

The golden bead in its mouth rotated violently, its speed so fast that a ring of cracks exploded on the surface of the bead.

A fluctuation of Source Power that would make everyone present feel their scalp tingle exploded outward from the core of the bead...

"Then die together!!!"

The energy mass gathering in its mouth swelled to its limit, and a dark golden sphere of light over two meters in diameter formed on the tip of its tongue.

Countless arcs of electricity jumped on the surface of the light sphere, and every time the arcs flashed, the air in the altar hall shook.

Those alienated researchers had already begun to melt; the gold coins and gold bars on their bodies turned into liquid under the illumination of the dark golden light, dripping down along their deformed bodies.

Lu Cheng felt that oppressive sensation; his injuries were not light right now either.

Taking a skill from a War Emperor Realm head-on, he didn't know how bad his condition was...

The boost given by Dangerous Investment in this state, plus the audience tips, he didn't dare to calculate it anymore.

"Holy Dragon..."

He took a step forward, and the Radiant Dragon Soul phantom behind him simultaneously spread its wings.

"...Roar!!!"

The Dragon Soul's massive maw opened.

A golden-white beam of light sprayed from its mouth, and both energies exploded simultaneously.

At the moment of the explosion, all sound in the underground space disappeared.

Then the shockwave exploded in all directions, the Source Power array patterns on the walls extinguished row by row, the bone-colored seal on the ceiling vibrated violently, and the Suppressing Seal pressed down a notch.

The golden bead in the Golden Toad's mouth let out an extremely crisp cracking sound.

The dark golden light sphere was pierced from the inside by the Holy Dragon Roar.

The beam of light pushed the light sphere into the Golden Toad's throat, then exploded out from its back, continuing to rush upward and crashing into the seal on the ceiling.

Lu Cheng's blast pierced through the underground altar's ceiling, soil layer, foundation, and the first, second, and third floors of the Qian Family Manor, shooting straight into the sky!

The night sky outside leaked in through the breach.

The cold wind poured into the underground space, dispersing the pungent, fishy-sweet smell and the scent of lamp oil in the air.

Moonlight shone on the Golden Toad's crack-filled face, its expression frozen at a point between disbelief and extreme fear.

The Golden Toad sculpture began to shatter.

Starting from the bead in its mouth, cracks spread all over its body.

Every crack emitted a shrill humming sound, and golden liquid gushed out from the cracks, evaporating into golden mist before it could drip to the ground.

Its four legs broke simultaneously, and a cloud of golden powder exploded at the breaking points, drifting in mid-air...

Its body exploded into two halves.

Then the head.

The Golden Toad's eyes stared at Qian Shuying for one last second.

The unwillingness in those eyes was so thick it was almost solidified. Its mouth opened once, wanting to say something.

Nothing came out.

The entire body exploded into a cloud of golden light dust... then flew straight toward the sky, disappearing without a trace again...

But for this kind of 'thing'... they just disappear; they don't die like this...

Perhaps one day in the future, it will appear in the human world again...

The Suppressing Seal slowly descended, landing in the center of the altar, and the bead in the crouching White Tiger's mouth stopped rotating.

The seal began to retract from the ceiling, the bone patterns shrinking back layer by layer until they were all pulled back into the Suppressing Seal.

The underground space fell silent.

Lu Cheng braced himself on the ground with one hand, panting heavily twice.

The Eternal Calamity Flame slowly retracted into his body from his shoulder blades, and the dragon scales on the surface of the Holy Dragon Armament peeled off one by one, turning into golden-white light particles and drifting away.

He looked up at the breach in the ceiling that pierced through the ground.

The diameter of the breach was at least five meters, and the soil layer at the edges was still dropping rubble and clods of dirt.

It had pierced through several building structures from deep underground to the surface. At the break point of each layer, steel bars and alloy frames were exposed, and the moonlight shone in from the top-most breach, refracting several layers of different halos in this vertical tunnel.

"The fuck..." Lu Cheng shook his numb right arm, "That hurts."

He took a deep breath, steadied his body, and then turned his head.

Qian Shuying was standing at his side.

The White Tiger phantom behind her had already dissipated, and the White Tiger stripes on her body were slowly receding.

However, she was still in a hyper-aroused state, her breathing very rapid, her chest heaving violently.

Lu Cheng walked two steps toward her.

Qian Shuying turned her head violently, her tiger pupils locking onto his movements.

Her pupils constricted slightly.

Her body reacted faster than her consciousness; her right hand was already half-raised, the White Tiger stripes on her fingertips flashed, and a layer of dark golden Source Power condensed on her five fingers.

Lu Cheng didn't stop.

He continued to walk forward, arrived in front of Qian Shuying, opened his arms, and pulled her into his embrace.

Qian Shuying's body stiffened for a moment.

The layer of dark golden Source Power condensed on her fingers pressed against Lu Cheng's chest, and he could feel her fingertips trembling slightly.

"It's over," Lu Cheng said.

His chest vibrated slightly when he spoke.

Qian Shuying was pressed against his chest and could feel this vibration traveling from his ribs into her eardrums.

"It's already over."

The layer of White Tiger Source Power on Qian Shuying's fingers began to loosen.

First the light on her fingertips went out, then her palm changed from an attacking posture to lying flat against his chest.

Her shoulders began to shake, from a slight amplitude to violent tremors.

The slit pupils within her tiger eyes slowly dilated, light spots dancing at the edges of her amber irises, and then tears gushed out from her eye sockets, streaming down in two lines.

She buried her face in Lu Cheng's chest, grabbed the fabric of his clothes on his back with both hands, and dug her nails into the fabric fibers.

The sobbing had been repressed for too long, and when it squeezed out from her throat, it was already incoherent, as if blocked by something.

With every sob, her shoulders heaved, and the White Tiger stripes on her back finally faded completely, her skin returning to its normal color.

Lu Cheng didn't speak, just patted the back of her head with his hand.

On the ground, in the plaza in front of the Qian Family main building.

Two War Kings of the Black Seed were illuminated for half a second by the beam of light rushing out from the breach...

This aura was not one of their people...

The two looked at each other, then turned around without hesitation, their figures flashing a few times before disappearing into the night.

Shen Guhong and Instructor Qi Xiangtian did not pursue, instead immediately heading toward that breach...

Looking from afar, seeing Qian Shuying and Lu Cheng embracing, they breathed a sigh of relief...

In the underground altar, Lu Cheng released Qian Shuying.

Qian Shuying's eyes were as red as a rabbit's, and the tear stains on her face had not yet dried...

Lu Cheng reached out to wipe away her tears, looked around, and said.

"Where is Xiuxiu?" Lu Cheng's voice echoed in the underground space, "Why don't I see her?"