The water pillar from a moment ago seemed to be merely the beginning. Countless streams of water condensed and took shape beneath the sea's surface, spiraling upward and soaring into the sky.
In just a few breaths, an endless expanse of seawater hung above Lin Xiao's head. Up and down, everything around him had turned into an infinite ocean. He was enveloped by storms and the extreme cold unique to the icy sea.
The next instant, seawater assaulted him from all directions. Immense pressure bore down on his body, like ten thousand jun of refined iron pressing on his shoulders, making it hard for him to tell whether he was still on the sea's surface or deep underwater.
A shadow faintly swam past beneath his feet. The Great Elder's figure seemed to have grown much larger. With a swing of her fish tail, the surrounding seawater turned as viscous as amber on the verge of solidifying. Even the simplest movement felt like struggling in an extremely thick liquid.
Beneath his feet, an invisible vortex continuously dragged him toward the depths of the ocean. All around him, bone-piercing cold relentlessly sapped the warmth from his body, as if trying to freeze the blood in his veins.
Lin Xiao opened his mouth and swallowed a large gulp of seawater. Although the cold brought a pain like countless blades cutting his mouth, his body still received the air it needed.
For sea spirit beasts, the ocean was their home field. Fighting here, humans were naturally at a disadvantage. But for Lin Xiao, the deep sea was not so fatal.
His gaze swept around, and he quickly spotted the Great Elder swimming continuously through the water.
"It seems the thing I gave you back then has now become the weapon used against me."
The Great Elder's voice rang out coldly, transmitted through the water from all directions, making it impossible to pinpoint her exact location.
Lin Xiao's expression remained unchanged. A faint blood-colored glow appeared on his right leg, then quickly spread across his entire body, even dyeing his long hair blood-red.
Spirit bone skill — Bloom in Fury.
The spirit power within his body boiled as though it were seething. Faintly, one could almost hear the sound of spirit power surging through his meridians.
Lin Xiao placed both hands before his chest. The higanbana Flower spun rapidly in his palms. As his first and fifth spirit rings lit up, the light of the ten-thousand-year spirit rings completely illuminated the seafloor.
Countless dark-red rays shot out in all directions with Lin Xiao as the center. At the same time, Fengshen acted in unison with him — countless soul guidance cannons fired together, their attacks vanishing into the sea.
"Hmph—"
A muffled groan sounded. Although Lin Xiao couldn't pinpoint the Great Elder's exact location underwater, he could sense the state of his higanbana Seeds. That attack had clearly landed on her.
Without pausing, Lin Xiao pressed the advantage. His second and third spirit rings lit up in succession. With a boom, the entire seafloor trembled slightly. Suddenly, a trace of blood appeared in the seawater swirling around him.
His figure spun, and both feet stomped down heavily. The seawater beneath him rapidly dispersed, and using the recoil, Lin Xiao adjusted his posture, facing the direction where his higanbana Seed had just struck the Great Elder.
However, before he could continue the pursuit, all light around him was instantly swallowed.
Just like when he had first entered the deep sea, everything turned pitch-black. He could only see a few short meters around him.
For a moment, even the spiritual force he extended was devoured by this darkness. He lost contact with those souls.
The surroundings fell into endless deathly silence. It seemed even the sound of his own heartbeat had vanished. He was like a lone soul abandoned in the depths of the ocean — an inexplicable feeling of loneliness surged in his heart.
In his spiritual sea, the field of flowers swayed in the wind. On the other side, gray mist spread. Lin Xiao's mind instantly cleared.
This was the Great Elder's spiritual attack, the specialty of the mermaid clan.
Raising his head slightly, Lin Xiao realized this darkness only bound him; the Great Elder had not followed up with another attack. Though he didn't yet know the exact reason, he already had a countermeasure.
On the other side, the Great Elder was not faring well. The higanbana Seeds had struck her body and then been detonated under the boost of Lin Xiao's fifth spirit skill. The scaleless parts of her lower fish tail were already dripping with blood.
It wasn't that she didn't want to attack Lin Xiao — she simply had no spare attention to do so.
Under Fengshen's command, the array of floating cannons split into different waves. Beams of light pursued her relentlessly from behind, each one precisely targeting her wounds.
With assassins chasing her from behind, while also having to occasionally deal with the attacks of Sleep Nightmare and Spirit Devourer — even though the power of these souls was based on Lin Xiao, the combat experience of a former Titled Douluo remained.
"If it weren't for…"
The Great Elder gritted her teeth and forced out those words.
With the physical strength of her spirit beast body, if she hadn't just undergone the heavenly tribulation, she could have endured the soul guidance cannon fire and forcefully dealt with Lin Xiao, the source of everything.
But having only recently survived the thunder tribulation, then forcibly withstood a round of soul guidance cannon bombardment, and now suffering damage from Lin Xiao's third spirit skill, her body no longer allowed her to tank the cannons head-on.
Though she didn't recognize the soul tools Lin Xiao had crafted, she knew that soul engineers also consumed spirit power when using soul tools. She didn't believe that with Lin Xiao's mere level-80 Spirit Douluo spirit power, he could sustain those soul guidance cannons for long.
And indeed, just as the Great Elder predicted, although Lin Xiao's array of floating cannons drew from the spirit power stored in charging soul tools, the stored spirit power was limited.
Especially during this period in the deep sea, he hadn't had time to recharge them, and much had naturally dissipated.
Yet before the Great Elder could outlast the cannons until their spirit power ran dry, a clear shout rang out.
The next moment, Lin Xiao, whom she had bound, reappeared in her sight. His blood-red long hair drifted with the currents, and the deep blue glow at his neck was slowly dimmed.
Against the Great Elder's spiritual methods, the most effective counter was naturally spiritual power itself. The external spirit bone Lin Xiao had obtained — besides allowing him to breathe underwater — naturally came with a spirit bone skill called "Song of Joy."
Though Lin Xiao could not sing the soul-enchanting songs of the mermaids, this skill still allowed his powerful spiritual force to pour out through sound.
The cage of darkness shattered. Lin Xiao's spiritual force instantly reconnected with the souls. The next instant, his gaze locked straight onto the Great Elder.
The Great Elder's eyes narrowed. Never had she thought a human could be as difficult to deal with as Lin Xiao before her.
Having just passed her heavenly tribulation left her body was extremely frail. The external spirit bone she herself had given him had stripped her of the natural advantage of the ocean.
A mere level-80 Spirit Douluo was actually making her feel a trace of real danger.
"You are courting death."
Lin Xiao gently shook his head. "From the very beginning, neither you nor I has had any path of retreat."
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