Chapter 1241 - 870: Heaven and Earth Balance

Zhang Chen wielded the Power of Time and could sense the Power of Time within Zhuge Cheng’s body; that power surged like a torrent, truly extraordinary, almost identical to the Power of Time in his own body.

But his own river of time governed the past and future, whereas Zhuge Cheng’s Power of Time ruled the present. It seemed he might not have the upper hand.

What Zhuge Cheng controlled was Time Freeze—if that isn’t the present, what is?

The key point was, if the overall Power of Time that Zhang Chen and Zhuge Cheng commanded was on par, yet all of Zhuge Cheng’s strength was specialized in Time Freeze, while his own strength had to be split between Time Reversal and Time Acceleration, then he really wasn’t a match for Zhuge Cheng.

It was like having the same barrel of gasoline: one car burning it can run farther than two cars sharing it.

His Power of Time had more variety than Zhuge Cheng’s, but lacked Zhuge Cheng’s single-minded specialization.

"This kid’s strength has grown a lot since he parted ways with Tushan Qing back then!" Zhang Chen was secretly astonished in his heart.

"You know him?"

Walking through the pitch-black passage, Gong Chun lowered his voice and asked Zhuge Cheng beside him.

He had noticed that the moment Zhuge Cheng first laid eyes on Zhang Chen, his state seemed somewhat off; there was apparently some shady business between the two.

"He and I don’t get along," Zhuge Cheng said in a low voice.

Hearing Zhuge Cheng’s words, Gong Chun was taken aback but didn’t say much more; he just looked at Zhang Chen with a hint of wariness in his eyes.

Just as Zhang Chen led the group through layer after layer of mechanisms, reaching the depths of the great tomb, he turned his head toward Gong Chun and suddenly asked, "Sir, it seems you don’t know me?"

"Why should I know you?" Gong Chun froze at the question.

Zhang Chen’s lips curled up. "From now on, you should be able to remember me."

With that, Zhang Chen suddenly slapped a certain slab of brick stone at his side. In the next moment, the Feng Shui Grand Array shifted out of alignment; the entire tomb’s Feng Shui Grand Array was rearranged and transformed, and Zhang Chen’s figure had already vanished from in front of everyone.

"Stop him!" Gong Chun already realized something was wrong, but it was still too late.

On the other side, Zhuge Cheng hurriedly activated Time Freeze, but the domain he could control with Time Freeze was limited and couldn’t encompass the entire tomb. He could only helplessly give up, a look of regret flashing in his eyes. "Got tricked by him again!"

To speak of Zhang Chen, his figure flickered and he had already appeared outside the great tomb. Before he could steady himself, the voice of the Queen Mother of the West suddenly sounded by his ear: "Didn’t expect you to still be this despicable and shameless."

"You can transmit your voice out through the void where the Ice Hell is located?" Zhang Chen’s movements stiffened. Hadn’t he already locked the Queen Mother inside the Ice Hell? How could she still perceive the outside?

"How does your Ice Hell space barrier compare to a world barrier?" The Queen Mother didn’t answer but asked back.

Zhang Chen was instantly speechless. What else could he say?

"You’re not allowed to spy on me!" Zhang Chen replied sulkily. He realized he’d hung a time bomb on himself, yet he had absolutely no way to deal with it.

"I merely wish to understand this world," the Queen Mother sighed faintly.

At her words, Zhang Chen fell silent. As for the Queen Mother’s movements, he could only let them be. Even if she didn’t listen to him, he had no way to do anything about it—he simply couldn’t control her!

"That young man seems to have the bloodline of wind, wielding the power of an Innate Wind God," the Queen Mother said by Zhang Chen’s ear.

"He’s nothing to fear. What I’m wary of is the youth beside him, called Zhuge Cheng. He actually commands the power of Time Freeze, and his Time Freeze is very strong. I don’t have any good way to deal with it right now." The only method Zhang Chen could think of to counter the other party was the Buzhou Seal, but could tenfold Buzhou Seal really break through that Time Freeze?

He didn’t quite dare test it, so he directly activated the Feng Shui Grand Array, burying everyone inside. With them deeply mired in mechanisms and traps, facing Ancient Times traps, they would undoubtedly die.

"I’d rather like to know how Zhou Chuan and Chen Xu are doing. How did it end up with the Gong Family occupying this tomb?" Zhang Chen unleashed ultrasonic waves, sensing sounds within a thousand-li radius, but unfortunately found no clues. So he directly summoned Nannan the Fox Immortal, and saw Nannan pop up in front of him, scampering over excitedly:

"Zhang Chen, you finally came out. This is just great! Something huge has happened outside!"

As soon as Nannan the Fox Immortal approached, she already shouted in a flurry of urgency.

"What happened?" Zhang Chen opened his mouth and asked.

The Fox Immortal Nannan pointed at Kunlun Mountain before them and said, "Chen Xu and Zhou Chuan had just walked out when they ran into Gong Chun. That Gong Chun pulled a cloth bag out of his bosom, and that bag sent out a gust of hurricane wind, blowing heaven and earth dim, sand and rocks flying. Chen Xu and Zhou Chuan were blown away on the spot. Look at that Old Turtle Ridge—big trees uprooted, a whole layer of turf peeled off. If I hadn’t sensed something was wrong and drilled straight underground, I’m afraid I would’ve been blown away too."

The Fox Immortal Nannan was the lookout Zhang Chen had left outside, so she had actually witnessed the battle outside with her own eyes.

"A cloth bag that can blow Zhou Chuan away?" Zhang Chen murmured, thoughtful. "It must be a powerful Innate Spiritual Treasure!"

"With Chen Xu and Zhou Chuan’s cultivation, even if they get blown away it’s no big deal. The reason the Gong Family came knocking is probably because Zhou Chuan didn’t clean up his tail properly, letting the Gong Family trace the trail back here, so they blocked the entrance to the great tomb directly."

Zhang Chen cocked his ear to listen to the sounds from Old Turtle Ridge; sure enough, he didn’t hear the voices of Zhou Chuan’s subordinates. Those bandits had long since been blown away by the wind, their whereabouts unknown.

"Forget it, none of that matters anymore!" Zhang Chen slowly walked down the mountain. "Right now, the most important thing for me is to go after Chen Ping’s escort agency main convoy."

Zhang Chen was just about to mobilize the Power of Blood Dao, but in the next instant, as the Qi Mechanism around his body had only just begun to boil, he saw threads of Blood Dao Origin seep out through his pores, circulating between Heaven and Earth. Startled, Zhang Chen hurriedly activated his Divine Techniques, drawing that escaping Blood Dao Origin back into himself.

"This..."

Seeing this scene, Zhang Chen was completely dumbfounded.

His Blood Dao Cultivation had now broken through the Twelfth Tier, and in the dark he felt a kind of indescribable shackle and oppressive pressure surge into his heart. The Origin Essence Qi in his body and the outside world seemed to have reached some kind of critical balance point. Whenever he even slightly circulated his Qi Mechanism, the Blood Dao Origin in his body always felt like it wanted to leak outward.

"Is this the predicament of a Great Cultivator? When the Essence Qi concentration in a Great Cultivator’s body surpasses the Great Heaven and Earth Environment, he’ll be drained by the Great Heaven and Earth, and the Twelfth Tier is a subtle balance point between man and the Great Heaven and Earth." At this moment Zhang Chen suddenly felt he understood the Queen Mother of the West a bit. A nameless bleakness surged into his heart. Had his own path of cultivation already reached its end as well?

He had berated the Queen Mother of the West, become the Queen Mother of the West, and now understood the Queen Mother of the West.

"How could it be like this? This Heaven and Earth can actually only tolerate living beings below Fruit Position?" The Queen Mother of the West was frightened as well, seeing the Essence Qi spilling out from Zhang Chen’s body; disbelief colored her voice.

Zhang Chen didn’t say a word; he directly slapped the Sealing Rune onto his body, suppressing his own Divine Power. Only then did that feeling of being on the verge of being sucked dry by Heaven and Earth slowly fade.

"What’s wrong with you?" The Fox Immortal Nannan noticed that Zhang Chen’s state was somewhat off and asked, her face full of concern.

At her words, a peculiar sadness showed on Zhang Chen’s face, but he didn’t speak. He just stood there blankly for a long time, then suddenly looked at the empty air in front of him and asked, "Do you think I still have any hope?"

Even the world barrier that the Queen Mother of the West couldn’t break—he didn’t think he could open it.

"To be born in such an era is your misfortune! It’s a pity my Peach Tree has already withered. Otherwise, if you had enough Peaches of Immortality to extend your life, perhaps you could boil Heaven and Earth to death." The Queen Mother of the West’s voice drifted faintly, full of inexplicable sorrow, a hard-to-describe mournful air spreading through the void.

"Peaches of Immortality? If the Peach Tree bore endless Peaches of Immortality, could I really extend my life?" Zhang Chen, as if grabbing the last strand of saving straw, muttered and asked.

"I said Peaches of Immortality, not Peach Tree! Now the Heaven and Earth Primordial Qi is already depleted; the Peach Tree is not tolerated by Heaven and Earth and simply cannot survive. Even if you dig the Peach Tree out from my tomb, you still won’t be able to cultivate it!" The Queen Mother of the West corrected Zhang Chen’s mistake.

At her words, Zhang Chen’s eyes began to light up. He didn’t pay any attention to what the Queen Mother of the West said; instead, a bold idea rose in his heart. He first set himself a small goal: boil Heaven and Earth to death!

The Queen Mother of the West said the Peach Tree couldn’t live? She couldn’t keep a Peach Tree alive, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t. After all, he still had the Heaven-Reaching Jianmu; the Heaven-Reaching Jianmu could continuously give birth to Innate Qi.

"There’s a chance! A great chance!" Zhang Chen’s eyes grew brighter and brighter, and the previous dejection was gone.

The Queen Mother of the West looked at Zhang Chen, her gaze full of astonishment. She didn’t understand why Zhang Chen had suddenly shifted from sorrow to delight. Had this brat gone mad?

Just as countless thoughts spun wildly through her mind, Zhang Chen asked again, "If there is a supply of Peaches of Immortality, can we really boil Heaven and Earth to death?"

"Of course!" The Queen Mother of the West nodded firmly. "But there is a massive flaw—that is, even if you have enough Peaches of Immortality to boil Heaven and Earth to death, your cultivation cannot improve and you cannot attain Fruit Position of Daluo. When Heaven and Earth return to Chaos, at that time you’ll have no cultivation. How will you survive in Chaos? Facing the invasion of Qi of Chaos, there is only one dead end!"

"Hahahaha! Hahahaha! Don’t I still have you? You’ll protect me, won’t you?" Zhang Chen’s voice burned with fervor. "I think we should make an agreement: I’ll protect you to survive in this world now, and you’ll protect me to attain Daluo in Chaos."

"Stop dreaming. The Peach Tree has already withered; you simply have no Peach Tree to plant. You have no chance." When the Queen Mother of the West said this, her voice was heavy with dejection. "I have no chance either. If you die, this space will collapse; I fear I’ll perish along with it."

Listening to the Queen Mother of the West’s sorrowful words, Zhang Chen didn’t care in the least. Instead, he happily pulled out the three withered Peach Trees from his sleeve.

Not to mention these Peach Trees—inside his Ba Snake Space, there were still quite a few Peaches of Immortality stored, enough for him to eat for a very, very long time.