Da Hai's momentary celebration had to be cut short sadly. He could feel his vitality drop by a massive percent. If he insisted to fight then his death is guaranteed. Bringing out the newly named pellucid divine water had exhausted him.
Taowu, despite his injuries, was still fully capable of fighting. This was evident when Qiankun, Wangshu, and Shangxia ganged up on him. Despite the three's attempts, they were unable to significantly harm Taowu. Taowu hopped a few kilometres away out of the way deciding it was better to rest for a bit.
Da Hai got back onto his feet before floating upwards again. Wangshu was injured but very much alive as were the other two ancestors.
"Can you use the universal ruler again?" He heard Wangshu ask as he neared them. The swirling vortex of miniature stars which was Qiankun dimmed and swayed.
"I can barely lift the damn thing," he complained. As if to prove his point the familiar ruler appeared briefly before dropping and disappearing into Qiankun's private dimension.
Da Hai stopped beside the three looking miserable. The three remaining heads were all bleeding from places and scales were missing. Taowu had done a great number on him.
"Without a doubt, Taowu is stronger than Taotie. By my guess he should've been at the Chaos Immortal realm for a while now," he admitted. Wangshu, Shangxia, and Qiankun nodded in agreement. What little remained of the army of innate gods looked extremely nervous.
Taowu who retreated a distance away from them licked his wounds and hissed in discomfort. It was a bit embarrassing to be repelled by one whose cultivation was beneath his but as figures of the same generation as him it wasn't that upsetting.
He had to admit, the loser Qiong Qi described years ago was not the same as the opponent he faced. If they both existed in equal realms, Da Hai will demolish him without a doubt.
Among the 4 evils, there was a certain ranking in power. Hundun was the strongest, he can fight all three of the rest and still win. Taowu came after him slightly edging out on Qiong Qi due to a higher understanding on the Dao. Qiong Qi boast incredible physical might with easily outperforms him but his cultivation into Dao is much lower. Taotie is in much the same boat as Qiong Qi.
If either improved their Dao realm then they can easily surpass Taowu whose own flesh was not impressive when compared to theirs. In fact, Taowu can say the same for all those half step Chaos Immortals he's fighting now.
Taowu considered himself lucky for returning to the Chaos Immortal realm early. The deal they've made was handsomely paid off and their stake in the conflict was ending soon. Kunwu was already dead and it will only be a matter of time before the other troublesome ones die as well.
It's a shame that Yingyang did not come. That was another individual that should be gotten rid of. The 4 evils need every advantage they get out of their early boost because once the truly powerful godfiends catch up, it's game over.
Taowu reignited himself planning to finish them all off once and for all. "It's been a fun one," he said light-heartedly. The flams grew stronger bolstered by the fierce winds. Long green translucent insect wings sprouted from Taowu's back blossoming into large appendages.
Many innate gods looked at the sight in horror. Many got up and wanted to leave, they wanted to break space and teleport out. The sad reality was, they couldn't. The Taiji painting had sealed space in its entirety. Reality was very stable here, far more stable than the normal primitive world.
Glitters of micro-sized orange dust came out of Taowu's fur looking like billions of fireflies. Each one was pretty but very deadly for each one was a bomb containing Taowu's primordial Qi.
Taowu's fangs grew longer protruding out of his face. His mane grew longer as well turning red in colour while his forelimbs elongated turning into human like arms rather than a cat's paws.
"Micro blaze," Taowu chanted softly. He flapped his wind creating a huge gust of wind pushing billions of those bombs out. With a single flap, these bombs spread everywhere.
From a distance, this sight looked amazing. Then one of the specs touched a rat cultivator. The rat was annihilated in an instant, not even dust remained.
Realising what Taowu had just done, everyone started running. However, the scale was simply enormous. Millions of creatures died just like that.
Weak True Immortals died in an instant, Profound Immortals were torn apart with a few dozen specs, Heavenly Immortals lasted longer but they also died. Who knows how many unique tribes just went extinct.
Innate gods fared a lot better. However, Taowu also targeted them specifically. Millions of specs clomped together attacking fleeing innate gods. It took far more but these people were too incinerated.
With the scale of this attack, Da Hai also abandoned the idea of saving everyone. His serpentine body curled up manifesting the white lotus beneath him. He concentrated the defensive power into a single point wrapping Wangshu, Qiankun, Shangxia and himself in a bubble.
Right now, conserving their core fighting force was the most important. He also released water tendrils to grab fleeing gods who were surviving better. Seeing this the others repeated the same action.
However, there were simply too much and these tendrils were obliterated. The four were too exhausted to continue except surviving hence they reinforced the shield around them.
Taowu kept bombarding the group. With Da Hai's current cultivation the defences of the 12 Petals White Lotus were astounding, its Qi rich environment also helped with recovery even though it was minor.
"This can't last forever," Qiankun told the group. The bombardment was seemingly endless, Taowu had expended a lot of power to kill them all and he was making full use of it.
"There is no possible way we can avoid them," Wangshu argued. Right now the lotus was all they've got between their bodies and the attacks. It may take millions of bombs but they too will eventually fall.
Taowu was also getting impatient. He was successful in killing over a hundred innate gods with a single move. The alliance of four half step Chaos Immortals were proving to be very difficult to deal with.
He flapped his new wings with great force. The storm of specs resembling a dust cloud all flew towards the white lotus. Taowu took a huge breath and unleashed a gust of orange storm clouds writhing with lightning.
"He's going to explode them all at once," Shangxia sighed hopelessly. He sat down looking defeated.
Da Hai shook his three remaining heads, "I have an idea, fellow daoist what I want to try will be very intrusive upon yourself but it may save us". There was a unique property of the pellucid divine water that could be used after all. It was experimental but it was all Da Hai could think of.
"Just do it, there is not much we can do anyway," Wangshu said in response. Qiankun also nodded, whatever Da Hai wants to do won't really matter as their deaths were all imminent.
"Very well fellow daoist, here I go," the others could feel Da Hai's primordial Qi injecting into their own being. They allowed this to occur but suddenly felt strange. Their insides felt watery.
Da Hai had manifested the pellucid divine water once more using up the remainder of his strength. He morphed his entire body into the substance and did the same to the others as well. The lotus shield disappeared and withdrew within the four shapes of transparent water.
'Desperate aren't we?' The 4 evils who were observing the battle thought in unison. Even if it is water it will still be obliterated into nothingness. The bombs erased anything they touched, they ate away at the very being of their targets.
As soon as the lightning clouds hit the mass gathering of orange bombs, all hell broke loose. The bright flash of light blinded every party present.
Even Hundun who had no facial features covered his empty void like face. He could feel his divine senses going haywire with too many blips going off. Huoyun's cloudy form was much the same, he also took this opportunity to slip away from Hundun.
'Dammit, don't die on me brother' Huoyun thought as he desperately reached for the centre of the explosion.
Qiong Qi and Si Hai who were comparatively closer brought out shields to protect themselves. No attempts to save their armies were offered. Only a few individuals were alive by this point.
As the flash faded away Taowu uncovered his face and his face could only display a shaken expression. 'How?' He asked himself, he was sweating now. Da Hai's group remained completely unharmed, his vast costly spell had been completely wasted.
Wangshu looked at Da Hai. His eyes were closed and his body was swaying. The sea god had long lost conciseness. From below a five coloured cloud caught the serpent. Huoyun had arrived to help.
Qiankun and Shangxia were touching themselves wondering what had happened. The pellucid divine water had taken over their entire being shifting them outside this layer of space.
The central power of the water comes from Da Hai's own Dao. The Dao of ever distant seas signified an existence besides something, here but not here. The divine water existed in another plane of existence besides the space they currently inhabited thus allowed the explosive force to pass through them.
It was an amazing ability with few weaknesses. In order to defeat it, one would need to locate the space the water existed in which if they were at their peak was something fairly manageable given time. A better method was to simply break space into chaos and force the water into real space. Either way, it was an amazing defensive ability to use out of nowhere.
Seeing Da Hai's form Wangshu grew furious. He looked into her pocket dimension and thought, 'Screw it'. She flew towards the still shocked Taowu and spread both arms wide. She wore a maddened fierce expression on her face.
"Let's see how you like a taste of your own medicine," she snarled while deploying much of her treasury. Contrary to many expert's thoughts to store their most private collection in their lair, Wangshu's was always on her person.
It was actually quite common to be targeted for having a good treasure hence many will hide them in discreet locations. Where Wangshu stored her things was not unheard of, just really ballsy.
In an instant thousands of low grade xiantian treasures appeared along with dozens of medium grade treasures. Treasures were incredibly valuable in augmenting someone's strength hence what Wangshu is attempting to do was inconceivable.
"She couldn't possibly!" Si Hai and Qiong Qi were frozen in shock. Although greed was present in their eyes were, it was also evident that they were frozen in panic. They felt Wangshu's energy and realised what she wanted to do.
Taowu who was slowly waking up widened his eyes in terror. Wangshu had thrown out more then 70% of her collection and planned to detonate them all.
The spiritual energy within a single xiantian treasure was heavy. Detonation of one would unleash all of that in a massive shockwave. She gripped her fists and the countdown started, Taowu could feel the primordial Qi contained within each treasure going out of control.
Wangshu faded into a ray of moonlight blitzing into Huoyun'd cloud. The figures of the 12 Petals White Lotus, universal cauldron, up down compass, five element pearl, and the celestial moon crown flashed. Huoyun was borrowing these treasures to protect his group.
Hundun was also rushing towards Taowu at top speed. He cannot allow his brother to die. The relationship between the four had been close for countless number of years.
In the fighting that had ensued, Taotie was stirred awake. He'd been ignored for too long and thus witnessed Taowu's miserable state. He rose up and opened his gaping maw.
"Cease this at once!" he roared beginning to suck in the overloaded treasures.
"Taotie you moron, you're not strong enough to contain all that yet!" Taowu quickly warned. He barely had time to wrap his tongue around himself as a shield.
Then the second explosion went off.