Chapter 128: The Bet
The Water Ape remained silent for a while, then turned its head around, glanced at those clansmen of the Black Water Serpent Clan, who were crying and struggling on the hundreds of small islands, abruptly opened its mouth and spat a large, black flag out.
The flag was shining with a black light; nine large, glowing stars were painted on its surface, and each of these stars were wrapped up by a thick layer of watery clouds. The Water Ape let out a great shout while tightly grabbing the hundreds of zhang tall flagpole and waving the flag hard in the air. Immediately, large amounts of black clouds started gathering in the sky, and countless black ice crystals began falling down into the Black Dragon Pool, from the sky, along with a clattering sound, which sounded similar to gigantic black waterfall.
The air temperature dropped suddenly, a freezing wind was brought up by those black ice crystals, and black mist quickly shrouded the entire area. Wherever the wind blew across, was immediately sealed by a thick layer of black ice.
The boiling Black Dragon Pool instantly stopped bubbling. The dense freezing air started spreading into the pool, even causing a thin layer of ice to appear on the surface of the water. Those clansmen from the Black Water Serpent Clan, who earlier on were about to be cooked by the hot steam, quickly regained their energies, while waving their weapons, they began shouting provokingly on the beaches of those small islands.
“The Black Underworld Water Manipulating Flag?” said Zhou Rong Tonggong while standing up. He then narrowed his eyes, smilingly looked at the large flag, which the Water Ape was holding in its hand, and continued, “It seems to have recovered quite well.”
The Water Ape looked back at Zhu Rong Tonggong with a serious expression and said, “Yes, the Black Underworld Water-Manipulating Flag. Back then, our master made an agreement with the last generation of the Fire God, Zhu Rong, regarding lending your Southern Wasteland’s Black Underworld Spring to us, the Water Ape Clan, for residence, because we needed to borrow the natural black underworld power that was contained in the spring, in order to heal the Black Underworld Water-Manipulating Flags.”
Pausing for a second, the Water Ape continued while pointing its finger at the large flag, “This is only one of the forty-nine dependency flags, the main flag hasn't fully healed yet, and is still soaked in the deepest area of the spring. However, this single dependency flag can still manipulate the vast black underworld power in the entire universe, and deliver unpredictable effects.”
Ji Hao sat on the back of the fiery dragon and stunningly stared at the Black Underworld Water-Manipulating Flag, which was shrouded by watery mist and seemed extremely powerful, silently feeling the unspeakable, mysterious power that laid contained in the flag. He performed the [Sky-Opening], which he had learned from the mysterious man, over and over again in his head; by doing this, he could see layers of nearly endless and boundless, naturally formed, ancient, mysterious lines and spell symbols inside the flag.
It belonged to the water element. These lines and spell symbols were formed by the most negative and natural black underwater power, which belonged to the power of the water.
Those lines and spell symbols looked like both beams of lights and wisps of smokes, coiling and rotating around each other in shapes of Tai Ji, supporting and devouring each other. The negative power contained in those lines and symbols was similar to the power of great rivers and tides that would never end. This power was extremely soft yet firm, cold and negative, and could hurt people without being noticed, which was just like the passionate kisses between lovers that could burn people’ souls unwittingly, and completely break a fresh heart.
Ji Hao’s Golden Dan started rotating rapidly in his spiritual space. The Golden Dan was gradually glowing more and more, and Ji Hao clearly perceived that the degree of integration between his own power and the water-power had largely been improved. If he would use the after-born water manipulating magic now, his speed would be faster than before, by over three times.
After having stared at the Black Underworld Water-Manipulating Flag for a while, Ji Hao realized that he could never thoroughly understand its mysteriousness, therefore, he turned his eyes to the small cauldron, which had been floating around Zhu Rong Tonggong’s head. This small cauldron was also filled with one certain kind of power, which was the purest type of fire-power.
After staring at the small cauldron for a while, Ji Hao’s understanding of the fire-power had also been improved, some of his meridians, which contained the Gold Fire Crow’s bloodline, had even become much brighter.
Waves of natural power began gushing into Ji Hao’s body; along with a swishing sound, a bright fiery light spurted out of Ji Hao’s body. His own power had also been improving at a shockingly fast speed.
Zhu Rong Tonggong turned around his head, looked at Ji Hao in both surprise and shock, then nodded delightfully.
He then turned back, smiled towards the Water Ape and said, “Since you can hold this flag in your hands, you must be someone important in the Water Ape Clan. Back then, when Gong Gong begged our Zhu Rong Country to lend the spring to your clan, fifty ancient Water Apes held flags and came with him. I assume that you were one of them.”
The water ape proudly raised its head and said, “Prince Zhu Rong, I have lived for...”
“How long you may have lived, is totally irrelevant to me. We are incomparable in status. Even if you lived as long as the old turtle at the bottom of the legendary Northern Underworld Sea, you’re still nothing but a dog of the Water Ape clan, while I am the Prince Zhu Rong. You’re not qualified to even to talk to me,” Zhu Rong Tonggong interrupted the water ape’s speech.
The Water Ape leaped up in anger, yelled harshly to Zhu Rong Tonggong, “Prince Zhu Rong, I respect you for...”
“If you didn’t respect me, I would have given the order to chop you into pieces, long ago. Just cut the chase, we have to end this with a fight anyway. You have the Black Underworld Water-Manipulating Flag, so what? This natural South spirit cauldron of mine can only be better than your black underworld water-manipulating flag, by many times!” Zhu Rong Tonggong interrupted the Water Ape’s speech once again.
While speaking, Zhu Rong Tonggong pointed his finger at the natural Southern Spirit Cauldron; along with his move, a bright fiery light appeared and quickly wrapped the cauldron up, and the white water contained in the cauldron, which had cooled down earlier, started boiling again. Along with that, the water in the Black Dragon Pool started boiling as well; hot streams rose into the air and fiery light shone everywhere, and the dense scent of fish soup once again spread to the surrounding areas. Not much later, large amounts of dead gigantic soft-shelled turtles, eels, and other aquatic animals, which had lived for thousands of years, were all floating, with their bodies stewed. The scent of fish soup grew denser and denser.
The lava giant, who had been standing beside Ji Hao was very thoughtful, and started telling people about the natural Southern Spirit Cauldron, “the natural Southern Spirit Cauldron is a naturally formed spirit treasure, and it is the magical spirit treasure of our eldest prince. Well, this cauldron was locked in the storage room of one of our palaces, but at the day when our eldest prince was born, this cauldron broke itself loose from the seal and flew out, chasing our eldest prince as its owner.”
“The natural Southern Spirit Cauldron was condensed by the purest firepower of the entire South, it is powerful and consummate, has infinite power, and is able to boil the sea and burn the sky. With our eldest prince’s cultivation, if all of those old monkeys come out with all fifty flags, they might barely be able to hold the natural Southern Spirit Cauldron’s power off, but this old monkey is just begging for pain by attempting to fight against our eldest prince all by himself,” continued the lava giant.
Just like the lava giant had said, once Zhu Rong Tonggong activated the natural Southern Spirit Cauldron’s real power, the water ape was completely unable to withstand his attack.
The Black Dragon Pool was now boiling like a real pot of soup, and the water level was continuously lowering inch by inch, at a visible speed. Those Black Water Serpent Clan’s clansmen on those small islands had all passed out due to the heat and fell on the ground, one after another.
The Black Dragon Pool was their holy land, similar to what the Gold Black Mountain was to the Fire Crow Clan. The clansmen of the Black Water Serpent Clan who were qualified to live in the Black Dragon Pool, were all elites. The death of each of them was a loss to the Black Water Serpent Clan. Now, seeing these elites falling down one after another like dominos, the Water Ape and the Black Flood Dragon began to feel anxious.
“Prince Zhu Rong, we made the agreement with your ancestor, which declared that the Black Underworld Spring and the land hundreds of miles around it, were lent to us, the Water Ape Clan, to live in,” yelled the Water Ape loudly, “After that, kids who had been led by us, opened their own territories, started conflicts with your Southern Wasteland clans. However, the King of Gods had never stepped into these kinds of conflicts. What you are doing now, will violate the rule, and humiliate your Zhu Rong family, the King of Gods.”
Before Zhu Rong Tonggong could respond, the eyes of the Water Ape shone with a weird soft light, “I know that some of our stupid kids have offended you, this time, otherwise, as a noble Zhu Rong prince, you would never have come over in person. But, it’s not reasonable for you to fight against us yourself. Why don’t we...”
Zhu Rong Tonggong smiled and asked, “What do you want?”
The Water Ape smiled back to him, and said, “Why don’t we make a bet? Both you and I stay out of this, and we let those kids fight against each other, to determine the winner all by themselves.”