Zhang Dong was grasping the cube with his giant golden hand. He could feel its corruption even without examining it with his system. In his previous encounters, he only needed to touch this type of cube and he would either get a prompt to absorb its power or it would happen automatically. In this current situation, this wasn’t happening, the cube was somehow absorbed into this creature’s structure.

There wasn’t much he could do in this situation. He was slowly getting absorbed into this creature as well, the only reason he wasn’t already dead was his holy dao. It was sufficient in pushing the demonic energies away but it also had its limit. Maybe if he was also in the great circle like this monster then he could overpower this power leech but at his current level, it was impossible.

The only thing he could do now is buy time for his battleship to charge its main cannon. That thing was powerful enough to even kill him when fully energized. He could see the ship slowly moving towards his direction while the front part transformed. The cannon slowly expanded while pointing towards him, in a few seconds the moment of truth would be upon him.

It might have seemed that he was committing suicide by battleship cannons but that wasn’t his plan. The beam of concentrated spiritual energy wasn’t for him but for the cube inside the monster. If it was destroyed he theorized that this monster would suffer a backlash, thus losing most of its cultivation base. Even if he got injured Huo Qiang and Feng Liena would be enough to finish it off in that state.

“What are you doing?”

Before the ship could blast away at him he heard a voice from afar. It belonged to his wife Zhang Liena, her soul-beast was surrounding the centaur looking monster with green cyclones while she on the other hand was flying his way. She had noticed that the ship was powering up and also who it was aiming at.

“Don’t come closer, I’ll be fine.”

He sent her a message while also prompting the ship’s captain to hurry up with charging the cannon.

“Captain, overload the engines, fry the systems if you have to, I can’t hold this thing for long…”

His glowing golden form was slowly flickering. The black miasma was engulfing him from head to toe. The creature’s squid face was in close proximity to his own. Zhang Dong inserted some of his reserves to his forehead to deliver a headbutt to its face. The monster’s head flew backward but this wouldn’t keep it from giving up, it would soon regenerate while trying to swallow him whole.

“You’re not fine at all…”

Liena wasn’t hearing any of it as she transformed into a green beam of light and headed towards Zhang Dong’s position. She was clearly unwilling to just let her husband be blasted by the giant ship’s cannon.

“Stop!”

Her approach was halted though by one of her allies. In front of her was Huo Qiang, he was slightly beaten up from fighting the large eyeball but the monster was now contending with his soul beast. It wouldn’t be held for long though.

“What are you doing, get out of my way Qiang!”

“Senior brother told me to stop you…”

“You…”

Liena looked into the distance, Zhang Dong in his giant form was slowly getting engulfed by a mass of dark green flesh. His golden color was dimming and the ship was almost done with charging up its main cannon. Liena knew that she wouldn’t be able to get Huo Qiang out of the way at least not in time to help her husband. She would still try…

“Get out of my way, or die!”

She took out a certain item from her spatial ring. It looked like an emerald badge with a green phoenix engraving on it. She held it out in front of her and injected it with her spiritual energy to activate it.

“You’re going to use that thing on me?!”

Huo Qiang put up his guard while looking at her. He knew well what the thing she was using was. He backed off while looking at her and his own soul beast that was wrestling with the giant eyeball monster.

Qiang wasn’t sure what he should do, he promised Zhang Dong to stop Liena for her safety and he would carry out that request. He knew very well what his senior brother was doing was very dangerous. He had trust in him, he believed that he would be fine but Liena would need to stay back for his plan to work.

The problem was the item that Liena was holding. It was a special device that was gifted to her by Zhang Dong. Qiang himself was waiting for one of his own but Zhang Dong told him that he would need to wait as there weren’t enough resources to go around just yet.

He put up his guard as he continued to block Liena’s way. The woman’s body started glowing in green color while the emerald badge floated towards her sternum. It attached itself a bit above that ample bosom which after an even shinier glow covered her body.

In a fraction of a second Liena’s body started getting covered by metallic parts. They covered her entirely, from head to toe in a suit of armor. This armor had an intricate streamlined design that complimented Liena’s form. It looked like it was made from some sort of green jade or crystal.

Qiang instantly felt Liena’s cultivation realm shooting up past his own. This secret treasure was similar to the dark armor Zhang Dong had gifted his grandfather all those years ago. It was tailored for his wife and was the only one that he had made. There just weren’t enough resources to go around, he didn’t even have his own version yet.

Soon the transformation was done and Zhang Liena bolted forward. Both of her and Qiang collided in a bout of strength. What normally would be a specialty of this red-haired brute quickly turned around. The green wind energy overwhelmed the red plasma. Huo Qiang got pushed to the side by a strong smack to the face while Liena continued forward.

But the deed was already done, the ship’s main cannon was getting activated. Her orders were ignored as the captain would follow Zhang Dong’s over Liena’s at any given moment.

“No, Stop!”

She cried out while seeing the cannon’s massive spiritual energy cannon fire away. This condensed torrent of Qi was much larger than the one the ship fired off during the battle against the Unlimited Sword Society.

This caused the ship’s main cannon to start melting, the tip of the ship even started to go up in flames as the order was given to overload the engines and fire at over 100%. Going over the limit would allow the cannon to fire off a stronger beam of energy but it would also destroy it in the process.

At this point in time, only half of Zhang Dong’s head and part of his feet were sticking out. He looked like a person that was getting entangled in some dark rubber that had tentacles. The creature was trying to devour him alive but also was having trouble maintaining its humanoid form while doing this.

He could feel the beam approaching, this was the moment to go all out. Zhang Dong gave it his all, with a burst of Qi he dipped into his reserves and the whole monster lit up along with him. He didn’t do this to free himself; at this point, it was far too late for that. No, he only used his last ounce of strength to move his hands forward.

In those hands of his, he had the corrupted cube that was being used to power this beast. The moment the beam of condensed energy was ready to hit, he opened up his palm so that it connected with the cube instead of him or the creature.

A gigantic explosion occurred instantly, everything went white. Liena that was charging forward was sent flying in the opposite direction, even with her armor on that pushed her power output by a small realm up she wasn’t able to hold on.

The ground rumbled, the people on the Argonaut were helplessly trying to control the ship. The alarms were going off everywhere and they were losing altitude. The main cannon was on fire and part of the repair crew was trying to put it off.
“Get the ship under control! What happened to the Patriarch, get the screen running!”

The Ship’s captain barked out orders while the whole room's crew was in a state of confusion. The explosion had seemed to have overloaded some of the spiritual devices. Before the Argonaut got stabilized two people rushed into the command deck.

“What is the meaning of this!”

The first person that had gone in was Zhang Liu, who was followed by Zhang Xue. Both of them looked maddened, why was obvious. They were manning the cannons not long ago but soon they found themselves looking at the main cannon firing at their Master. They weren’t able to do anything about it, so they rushed here to get some answers.

“It was the Patriarch’s orders! Now sit down you two brats, you might be the Patriarch’s disciples but here you have no authority!”

The man slammed his fist down on his chair while glaring back at the young man. Zhang Xue placed her hand on Liu’s shoulder as she tried to calm him down. Not long after the large screen flickered with light.

“We regained the signal Captain…”

They all started at the screen, there was a lot of static on it but slowly it started to clear up. When the dust had settled they were greeted with a surprising sight.

“Where are they?...”

What they saw was perplexing. There was absolutely nothing there, no monster or Zhang Dong anywhere. Instead, they saw a large hole, the strange thing about it was the shape. It was a perfect sphere. It was as if someone took a big chunk out of the ground.

On the outside, Zhang Liena and Huo Qiang were closer to this phenomenon. Both of them could feel the strong spiritual energy coming from the center of that large hole. The two huge monsters that they were fighting against weren’t looking so good either.

The moment the light subsided and the sphere hole was revealed they noticed that the two beasts started crumbling into dust. They could only explain this with the death of the main monster that Zhang Dong was fighting with. The big question was, where did he end up? Was he killed in the explosion along with it? Or did he get out in time? No one was sure but they wouldn’t be leaving this place before they found some clues.

“I… I don’t feel him anywhere…”

Zhang Liena looked around but couldn’t get a read on her husband. She quickly deactivated her emerald armor and looked at her hand. On it was a ring that her husband gave her, it was linked to another one that he had with him. The two rings were linked by a teleportation formation, if she activated it she should have been able to go to her husband.

Her hands trembled a bit but she activated it but to her dismay, nothing had happened. She tried again and again but to no avail, it just wasn’t working.

Huo Qiang dived for that large hole that was formed after the explosion. He lit up the place with his fire but he couldn’t spot anything either. There was nothing there, no monster remains, and no Zhang Dong.

“Where are you, senior brother…”