Fully aware of the destructive power of this object, Li Jing, in his urgency, immediately cast a spell and summoned the Seven Treasure Exquisite Pagoda, intending to collect all the strange, densely packed objects—numbering in the hundreds or even thousands—falling from above into the pagoda.
This measure proved effective.
Almost all of the falling strange beads entered his exquisite pagoda.
Seeing that despite their large numbers, these objects were no match for his treasure pagoda, Li Jing couldn’t help but curl the corners of his mouth.
Once he identified who was acting recklessly and attacking his palace in broad daylight, he would show no mercy!
However, before he could relax for even a minute, the golden light surrounding the exquisite pagoda in mid-air began to behave strangely, trembling and shaking in waves.
It was as if something inside the pagoda was rampaging, on the verge of breaking out at any moment!
Even when Heavenly King Li increased his magical power, even when he exerted all his strength, he still couldn’t control the pagoda’s trembling.
Only when this “rain” targeting him alone stopped again did the Seven Treasure Exquisite Pagoda return to calm.
Li Jing also breathed a sigh of relief.
Yet this calm lasted only three short seconds.
Li Jing’s heart rose and fell dramatically. With both hands forming seals, he cast another spell, attempting to retrieve the pagoda.
But the pagoda no longer obeyed his commands.
Li Jing, unsure whether he was shocked or panicked, opened his mouth wide enough to swallow an ostrich egg.
Immediately after, the light around the exquisite pagoda dimmed. It rotated in the air on its own, aligning its tip upward and its base downward, directly pointing at Heavenly King Li.
Before he could even ponder the reason, like someone experiencing acid reflux after consuming toxic food, the pagoda vomited out every single bead it had just collected, without missing a single one.
Li Jing inwardly cried out in alarm, somersaulting several times to evade. The spots where he had previously stood were struck by purple lightning from the explosions, leaving behind blackened, smoking craters.
At this moment, a situation of “lifting a stone only to drop it on one’s own foot” emerged.
Because he feared Nezha might steal the pagoda, he had placed a strict command on it: the distance between the pagoda and himself must remain within ten meters.
This meant that no matter how he dodged, the pagoda followed him like a persistent shadow, more tenacious than a sticky plaster, impossible to shake off.
High up in the clouds, Shen Fuxing had already reloaded her Gatling with a third round of ammunition.
Her eyes were shadowed and icy, her pupils seemingly turning a terrifying red, yet a faint smile hung at the corner of her lips.
The ammunition was something she refined herself using chemical additives combined with the formula for the Thunderous Divine Fire Pill.
The Gatling was something she had commissioned someone to bring a blueprint from the mortal realm and assembled by hand.
Li Jing must die today.
At the thought that this Heavenly King, who had cursed her and her grandfather to remain apart, was truly about to perish, Shen Fuxing’s blood boiled uncontrollably. That excitement, that urgency, filled her chest and mind.
It had dominated all her reason from the moment Li Jing uttered those harsh words against her grandfather.
Her hand holding the Gatling trembled slightly as she adjusted the muzzle. Her eyes narrowed slightly, looking down disdainfully at Li Jing, who was dodging and scurrying about like a clown.
Her slender, pale finger pulled the trigger, her expression calm and composed as she fired without hesitation.
—Go to hell.
The unknown beads inside the Seven Treasure Exquisite Pagoda had all been expelled. Three times, a torrential downpour targeting only him had fallen from the sky, determined to end his life.
It gave Li Jing no chance to catch his breath.
This time, however, he dared not use the pagoda to collect them.
Not because he feared the pagoda would collect them only to spit them back at him intact, but because the pagoda’s body had already developed fine cracks from being struck internally by the countless beads earlier.
Li Jing instantly panicked.
He could tell the bead was powerful, but he hadn’t expected it to be this formidable—it actually managed to damage his treasured pagoda.
If that crack had been just one millimeter larger, the day Nezha returned would have been his death anniversary.
Li Jing, now free from his pagoda, no longer cared about anything else. Clutching his lifeline tightly to his chest, with his Cloud Tower Palace destroyed and nowhere to hide, he dashed into the homes of other immortals.
Any temporary refuge would do.
This led to a chaotic scene: just as some immortals, hearing the thunderous roars outside, were about to step out to investigate, Li Jing—covered in dust and desperately shielding his pagoda—kicked open their doors and barged in. The next second, their homes were violently attacked from outside, reduced to rubble in less than half a minute.
With no buildings left to hide behind, Li Jing immediately took flight without a word.
Then he kicked open the door of the palace next door.
Again, in less than half a minute, that massive neighboring palace was blasted into oblivion.
Barefoot Immortal, who had been listening to music with headphones while bathing, was left utterly bewildered. His slightly plump, naked figure was suddenly exposed to the public eye.
Wenqu Xingjun immediately covered his face with his sleeve and turned away.
In his heart, he repeated: “Do not look at what is improper, do not look at what is improper…”
Finally realizing what had happened after seeing the figure that had suddenly burst into his home and was now fleeing across the Heavenly Court, Barefoot Immortal let out a sharp, piercing shriek and hurriedly covered his lower body.
“Li Jing! It’s you—again!!”
Boom!
Another palace was gone.
Boom!
Yet another palace vanished.
Wherever Li Jing passed, all palaces were flattened, leaving the land barren for three years.
This spectacle was quickly captured on video by Taibai Jinxing, who posted it to his social media feed.
He had been affected too.
But compared to the flustered and furious Barefoot Immortal, who was frantically looking around for cover or a piece of cloth, Taibai Jinxing remained far calmer.
The commotion in the Heavenly Court was so immense that news of it spread like the wind, swiftly reaching Spirit Mountain and the Thirty-Three Heavens.
The Jade Emperor slammed the table in fury: “Where is Celestial Master Zhang? Issue the decree! Quickly issue the decree for me!! Summon Erlang Shen, Yang Jian!!”
Damn that idiot Li Jing! Knowing that thing was chasing him and exploding, he still panicked and ran straight into my private sauna room. Doesn’t he know I’m busy at this hour!??
Meanwhile, in the Tushita Palace of the Thirty-Third Heaven.
Taishang Laojun gazed at the Thunderous Divine Fire Pill that Silver Horn had poured out from the Purple Gold Gourd, his eyes lighting up.
Holding it between his fingers and examining it for a long time, his eyes filled with admiration.
A few days earlier, Golden Horn had reported that the formula for the Thunderous Divine Fire Pill had suddenly been blown away by a gust of wind and disappeared.
The Thirty-Three Heavens never experienced wind—this was highly unusual. Taishang Laojun tried to divine the whereabouts of the formula but found himself unable to calculate it.
Though he couldn’t fathom this Heavenly Secret, he wasn’t in a hurry to uncover the truth. The Great Dao is formless, and everything unfolds according to its own mysterious arrangements.
And now, hadn’t the news come to him on its own?
“My child, was this Divine Fire Pill truly picked up in the Heavenly Court?” Taishang Laojun asked with pleasant surprise.
Having refined such divine pills himself, he knew all too well how difficult it was to achieve a successful pill.
The Thunderous Divine Fire Pill possessed boundless destructive power. Another reason he wasn’t worried about the lost formula was that, aside from himself, no one in the Three Realms could refine this pill.
The Divine Fire Pill Silver Horn brought back was much smaller than the ones he refined, its craftsmanship immature and its composition impure.
It wasn’t refined entirely according to his formula but incorporated other substances to replace rare and hard-to-find materials.
This revealed the extraordinary talent and ingenious thinking of the alchemist.
Silver Horn said mischievously, “Master, you wouldn’t believe it—up in the Heavenly Court, these pills were falling like rain, and so many palaces have been blown to pieces!”
“The little one was passing by and, out of curiosity, used the Purple Gold Gourd to collect a pill, then brought it back for the Patriarch to see.”
“Hahaha, excellent!” Taishang Laojun threw his head back and laughed, his snow-white beard swaying with the motion. “Child, you and your brother keep watch over the alchemy furnace. I shall return shortly.”
He was heading to the Heavenly Court to personally meet this alchemy prodigy.
The Heavenly Court had been bombed, with damage comparable to the havoc wreaked by the monkey during his rampage in the celestial palace.
The commotion instantly shot to the top of the heavenly realm’s trending list.
The likes and shares on Taibai Jinxing’s social media feed surpassed a million within three minutes.
Sun Wukong, far away at Spirit Mountain, even sent him a private message: [“Old angel, protect that person for now—I, Old Sun, am on my way!”]