Bearing the blue sky

Chapter 322 Fierce Battle! Sitting on the Mountain and Watching the Tigers Fight!

The sound rose from the river's surface with an echo that seemed to have been submerged for a long time before surfacing.

It wasn't as sharp and piercing as the voice of a high-ranking sorcerer; it was more like a stone that had been polished by the river for a long time, finally emerging from the water and reflecting a moist luster under the moonlight.

Everyone looked at the river simultaneously.

A figure is slowly rising from the river, more solid than before, no longer having that fleeting feeling of being scattered by the current.

Its outline took on a deep blue luster under the moonlight, like a riverbed that had been washed by water for a long time, finally revealing its true form.

Its body is more complete than before, with its hands hanging at its sides, water droplets constantly falling from its fingertips and then flowing back into the river, like a river slowly taking shape confirming its connection with this body of water.

The true form of the River Demon was finally fully revealed at this moment.

A layer of flowing water film enveloped his body. The water film was not still, but flowed slowly with an ancient rhythm, like a miniature river circulating on his body.

Countless tiny aquatic creatures could be vaguely seen swimming within the water film, including silvery-white fish, translucent shrimp, and algae that looked like they existed since ancient times.

They appear and disappear in the water, as if the body of the river demon is a complete aquatic ecosystem.

His face was rugged and deep, with deep lines between his brows and eyes, like the patterns on a riverbed that have been eroded by water for millions of years, each line concealing the power of time.

His arms slowly spread out to the sides, and the water vapor on the river rose up and condensed behind him into a huge water curtain. The water curtain was more than ten feet wide and as tall as a city wall, and various images kept appearing on it.

Fishing boats drift on the river, children play in the water on the bank, people throw offerings into the river during sacrificial ceremonies, and corpses from wartime float downstream.

The images flowed endlessly, like a projection of the entire river's memories, all of which were now awakened by the river demon and displayed before everyone.

"After being ignorant for countless years, today this demon has finally gained sentience!"

.

The figure spoke again.

His voice had a rough quality, as if it had been polished by flowing water for a long time, or a deep texture, like the silt that had been deposited at the bottom of a river for many years and was stirred up.

His voice echoed across the river, each note accompanied by the undulations of the water, as if the entire river resonated with him.

"From this day forward, the southern Vietnamese wilderness will be my watery kingdom!"

As the River Demon finished speaking, the river beneath his feet suddenly swelled, and the water flowed as if it had come alive, spreading to both banks and swallowing the previously exposed riverbed, completely submerging the roots of several old banyan trees growing on the banks.

The banyan trees trembled violently the moment the water touched them, their leaves falling in a rustling sound, as if they were feeling the pressure of some ancient power.

The crowd on the city wall erupted in uproar.

The soldiers who had been aiming their bows and crossbows at the river suddenly took a half-step back, their weapons trembling slightly.

Some people were quietly reciting the water god incantations passed down from their ancestors, while others stood frozen in place, their eyes fixed on the deep blue figure on the river, as if they saw the legendary river god step out of the ancient books.

"River Demon?" Zhu Ge knew the meaning of this title.

However, it seems the River Demon wasn't paying any attention to him at all, but instead looked at the Great Sorcerer.

Interesting — Zhu Ge smiled inwardly.

So he immediately put on the [Stealth] item and hid the bone monster clone.

At this moment, the great sorcerer also shifted his gaze from Zhu Ge to that figure.

His expression subtly changed. "You?"

The Grand Master of Sorcery finally spoke, his voice carrying a condescending arrogance, as if looking down at an ant trying to shake a giant tree.

"Hahahaha, you weakling, you don't know my power!" The River Demon laughed wildly.

His laughter stirred up ripples on the river, which spread outwards and slapped against the base of the city wall, producing a dull thud.

Each impact caused the city wall to tremble slightly, and dust fell into some of the long-neglected brick joints.

The sorcerer did not refute, but simply raised his hand.

The dark green energy, formed from the condensation of 2,700 pregnant women's heads, re-condensed in his palm, as if it were being compressed into an even denser state.

The energy was about the size of a human head, with countless distorted facial contours churning on its surface. Each face was roaring silently, its open mouth revealing a pitch-black void.

The faces pressed together and overlapped, emitting a buzzing sound like countless tiny sounds overlapping each other. The buzzing sound was deep and dense, as if it came from the depths of the earth, or as if it came directly from inside each person's skull.

The ball of energy slowly rotated in the great sorcerer's palm, its dark green light reflecting on his pale face, making his expression even more sinister and terrifying.

His five fingers slowly closed, and the energy was compressed even more tightly. The buzzing sound became increasingly sharp, as if thousands of fine needles were vibrating in the air at the same time.

"You think that by gathering intelligence you can contend with me?" The great sorcerer's voice carried a hint of coldness: "You are just a river, you know nothing."

"River! Life and death! This is my destiny, you cannot stop me!"

'

The river demon's voice carried an undeniable certainty, the confidence that only a river that has flowed for millennia possesses.

He doesn't need to argue or prove anything, because he himself is an irreversible force.

Just as a river always flows from high to low and from its source to the sea, anything that blocks its path will eventually be washed away or bypassed.

The sorcerer remained silent.

He pushed the ball of energy toward the river.

The ball of energy exploded the moment it left his palm, turning into countless tiny, dark green specks of light that poured down on the figure like a torrential rain.

The points of light were dense and swift, each trailing a dark green flame, drawing countless intersecting trajectories in the night sky, like a meteor shower falling, covering most of the area above the river demon.

The light spots emitted a sharp whistling sound when they rubbed against the air. The sounds overlapped and formed a buzzing sound similar to the simultaneous flapping of wings of millions of flying insects, which made one's scalp tingle.

Dark green rain poured down.

The river demon neither dodged nor retreated.

He raised his hands slowly and steadily, as if lifting a heavy boulder from the bottom of a river.

At the same moment, the water on the river surface surged upwards, forming a wall of water that blocked the path of the falling light spots.

The water wall was not formed from ordinary river water; a light blue halo flowed across the surface, the result of the river demon infusing it with its millennia-old water power.

The surface of the water wall was constantly rippling with fine waves, each wave a layer of defense, layer upon layer, like a thousand-layered mountain range.

The moment the light spot came into contact with the water wall, it emitted a dense hissing sound, like hot metal being thrown into water.

When those dark green light spots struck the surface of the water wall, they released violent energy fluctuations, instantly evaporating the water layer on the surface of the water wall and turning it into large clumps of white mist that rose up.

The white mist took on an eerie gray-green hue under the moonlight, spreading across the river and obscuring part of the view.

But new water keeps rising from the river surface, filling in the parts that have evaporated.

The river demon's arms trembled slightly, and the water-like patterns on its forehead became clearer, indicating that it was mobilizing the power of the entire river to maintain the water wall.

Beneath his feet, the river's flow suddenly accelerated, and countless whirlpools formed and dissipated around him. Each whirlpool drew water from a more distant section of the river, continuously supplying it to the water wall.

The water wall retreated continuously under the impact of the light spots, and the rate of surface evaporation once exceeded the rate of replenishment.

But the river demon let out a low roar, and a dark current suddenly surged up from the depths of the riverbed. The current was dark black and carried the scent of ancient sediment.

Its arrival instantly thickened the water wall by several feet, blocking out all the dark green light spots.

"Weak and clumsy." The great sorcerer's gaze lingered on the surface of the water wall for a moment, his expression disdainful.

The dark green light in his palm was more intense than before, and more distorted faces emerged from that light, more than before.

Densely packed, layer upon layer!

It was as if he had drawn even more energy from some indescribable source after that attack.

The roars from those faces became clearer, and the outlines of some of them could even be discerned.

There were old women, young girls, and newlyweds; the fear and resentment of their past lives still lingered in their eyes.

"Your water wall can stop it the first time, but not the second time," the great sorcerer said indifferently.

The dark green light in his palm began to spin, faster and faster, forming a small energy vortex.

The center of the vortex gradually turned pitch black, as if a tiny crack had been torn open, within which something indescribable could be vaguely seen wriggling.

The sorcerer began chanting in an ancient language, a language that was obscure and difficult to understand.

Each syllable seemed to be squeezed out from the depths of the throat, carrying a texture that seemed otherworldly.

"Hahaha, you're the weak one." The River Demon didn't care about the Grand Sorcerer's disdain at all.

The water on the river surface began to change as the figure spoke.

The once-flowing river water began to accelerate, forming tiny whirlpools.

Then the whirlpools connected with each other, forming a slowly advancing current on the river surface, surging towards the city wall.

The water was only three feet high, but its power was astonishing.

Where the water flows, the riverbanks are instantly sheared away, and old trees that have grown for decades are uprooted, swept into the water, and broken and shattered in the churning.

The water flow carries mud, sand, gravel, broken wood, and countless aquatic creatures, which tumble and collide in the current, producing a dense crackling sound.

"The river is my territory!"

The water flow accelerated, transforming from a slow, creeping movement into a surging torrent, rushing straight towards the base of the city wall.

All obstacles along the way were swept up in the current, and even an abandoned altar on the shore was swallowed up by the water. The stone statue that originally stood on the altar collapsed under the impact of the water and sank into the water and disappeared.

The great sorcerer's aura flickered slightly, as if he were reassessing the intensity and extent of the water flow.

His eyes, hidden in the shadow of his hood, gleamed with an eerie green light, and his pupils contracted slightly, clearly indicating that the River Demon's move had taken him by surprise.

Instead of retreating, he pushed the dark green light from his palm forward, transforming it into a thicker beam of light that shot straight toward the figure.

The beam of light was more solid than the previous energy cluster, with a diameter of over three feet. Its surface was covered with dense runes, each of which flickered and released breathtaking energy fluctuations.

Wherever the beam of light passed, the air was torn apart, producing a muffled sonic boom, and even the moonlight was obscured by the dark green light.

When the beam of light fell on the water, it did not penetrate the water as expected, but was instead held up by a layer of constantly churning water.

The water film surrounding the river demon suddenly expanded the moment the beam of light touched it, transforming into a water curtain that covered the entire river surface.

The water curtain undulated like a living thing, dispersing the power of the light beam across the entire surface of the water, like a pebble thrown into a lake, creating ripples that spread outwards, but unable to reach the bottom.

The energy of the beam of light rippled across the surface of the water curtain, transforming into countless tiny arcs of light that moved across the water's surface. Each arc evaporated a large amount of water vapor, but the water vapor rose into the air and then condensed back into water droplets, falling back onto the river surface, forming a cycle.

"You are using the entire river to share the burden of my attack," said the great sorcerer.

His voice carried a rare hint of seriousness, and his previous disdain had largely faded.

"Yes." The river demon said smugly, "You attacked the entire river, not just me."

His voice was full of confidence because he was telling the truth.

In this land of water, he is the river, and the river is him.

Even the most powerful sorcerer is nothing more than a great master who has cultivated for hundreds of years.

But he is the river that has flowed for thousands of years, the lifeline upon which all living things on this land depend for survival.

A great sorcerer can kill a person and wipe out a city, but how can he kill a river?

A river that has flowed between heaven and earth for countless years?

The sorcerer said nothing more and withdrew his hand.

The dark green light slowly dissipated in his palm, as if it were being drawn back into his body.

His movements were calm and composed, without the slightest panic, as if the previous defeat had not affected him at all.

However, he withdrew his palm a fraction slower than usual. That slight difference might be hard for an ordinary person to notice, but Zhu Ge saw it clearly.

The great sorcerer's fingers trembled slightly as he withdrew them, a sign that he had exhausted too much power.

"That's about it—"

Zhu Ge noticed something amiss and focused intently on it.

The Grand Master of Sorcery has only just broken through to the next level.

The River Demon has also just broken through.

However, the River Demon's power had been accumulating for far too long!

The sorcerer will soon be defeated, and Zhu Ge should prepare to reap the benefits.

"Since this river demon is unwilling to become a ghost, let's just kill it and wait for it to develop new intelligence in the future."

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