Quinn Shepherd's transmission spell, cultivated from the Heavenly Demon Cult, is vastly different from the blood-sacrifice teleportation used by these foreign demon gods. The latter is far more primitive and ancient, whereas the Heavenly Demon Cult's transmission art is built on spatial mathematics and requires profound mastery of spellcraft to execute.
The biggest difference is this: the Heavenly Demon Cult's transmission spell knows both the 'how' and the 'why'—it solves the underlying equations. Blood-sacrifice teleportation, on the other hand, knows only the 'how,' not the 'why'—it doesn't seek understanding, only effectiveness.
This gives Quinn the opportunity to meddle with their teleportation array.
"Rat Immortal, take me and Deaf underground. I need to inspect the runic layout on their altar, then cast my transmission spell, and Deaf will paint out the spell's runes as I cast them. Flood-Dragon King, you come too—I’ll need your power."
Quinn spoke quickly: "Apothecary, you all stay here and guard Granny Sue and the Imperial Preceptor’s bodies."
His plan set, Rat Immortal immediately took them down from the Solar Ark. "Don’t move—I’ll carry you through the underground," he said, then twisted into a giant rat, wrapped Quinn, Deaf, and Flood-Dragon King in a swirl of demonic wind, and tunneled away.
Quinn felt himself speeding through the earth. Soon, his motion stopped abruptly, and before his eyes, a vast emptiness opened up—just as Rat Immortal had described, a grand scene sprawled before him.
A colossal divine statue rose from the depths, bound tight by massive chains. Where the chains crossed, palaces pressed down; beneath each palace, more chains extended, anchoring a gigantic saber running north to south.
The saber gleamed, locked in place by chains—as if to prevent it from flying away.
The blade was so enormous that Quinn couldn’t even imagine who could wield such a weapon.
That unlucky divine statue, rising from the earth, collided headlong with the blade—the indestructible statue’s head sliced right at the brow.
On the statue’s upraised palm, a dozen tall stone figures busily constructed a gigantic altar. Though both altar and figures were enormous, compared to the divine statue they seemed minuscule.
Naturally, Quinn, Deaf, and the others were even more insignificant by comparison.
Quinn activated the Ninefold Heaven Eye Art, carefully examining the runic marks on the altar and memorizing them. Rat Immortal darted around with him for a long while, until Quinn had inspected all the runic imprints around the altar.
"Rat Immortal, stop."
Quinn mused, "Let’s go to that palace. I’ll settle down there and run some calculations."
Rat Immortal led them to one of the palaces. A long floating bridge connected it to the underground cliff, as if people once lived here, guarding the subterranean space.
Quinn set foot on solid ground and looked around. The vermillion palace’s doors were tightly locked, and with his divine eye he saw the doors sealed by intricate enchantments—nearly impossible to enter.
"Let’s just stay here."
Quinn pulled out a Glutton Dragon Pouch and rummaged through it, extracting all sorts of calculation tools: Wuji disks, Taiji disks, Five-Element beads, Eight-Trigram plates—hundreds of them, each with different constructions, movable lines and hexagrams. Every configuration needed a different tool, so he had a dizzying array.
He lifted the tools with his qi, and instantly, countless calculation devices floated in the air, splitting, merging, and rearranging. The complexity left Rat Immortal and Deaf utterly stunned and dizzy.
After a moment, a vast computational array appeared in the air, spanning over ten yards. Binary, quaternary, senary, octal, nonary, decimal, hexadecimal, and sixty-four-base mechanisms whirred as Quinn’s qi powered them, filling the air with endless clicks and clacks.
Various calculation beads floated up and down in the air.
There were also blocks and cuboid columns of all sizes, constantly evolving.
"Can you make sense of this?" Rat Immortal whispered to Deaf.
Deaf waved his hand: "I can’t hear a thing."
Rat Immortal couldn’t help but laugh and cry at the same time.
Suddenly, Quinn shook the Glutton Dragon Pouch, and all the calculation tools whooshed back inside, vanishing instantly.
"All done! Deaf Grandpa, it’s your turn!"
Quinn, spirits lifted, channeled his qi, and a transmission spell array appeared in the air, its runes lighting up one by one.
Deaf looked up, lifted his brush, and painted in the air—his strokes swift and fluid—quickly rendering a diagram of the array, its runic marks identical to Quinn’s transmission spell.
He used a painting technique Quinn had once taught him—the 'world-in-painting' method. In the past, Deaf’s art manifested wind when he painted wind, thunder when he painted thunder. Now, it was reversed: his paintings contained worlds within.
Quinn dismissed the first transmission spell and, channeling his qi again, conjured a second array in the air.
Deaf painted the second transmission array. Rat Immortal peered into the painting, stunned: though it was a flat image, he could see a whole space inside—just like Quinn’s transmission spell!
Quinn’s cultivation limited the range and power of his spell, but Deaf’s painting—though it appeared small—contained a vast inner space, probably several miles across!
Quinn cast another transmission spell and had Deaf paint a third diagram. Deaf did so, and Quinn had him place the third diagram beneath Quinn’s feet.
Deaf paused, puzzled, but complied anyway.
A beam of light shot from Quinn’s eyes to the space above the giant saber. "Deaf Grandpa, put the first diagram here," he said.
With a flick of his brush, Deaf sent the first diagram flying to the spot Quinn indicated, where it gradually faded and vanished.
Quinn calculated for a moment, then another beam shot from his eyes to the statue’s abdomen. "The second diagram goes here," he said.
Note: This line is a webnovel navigation prompt and not part of the story. Skip translating.
With a bold stroke, Deaf sent the second diagram flying, landing precisely where Quinn indicated, and it too faded away.
Quinn let out a sigh of relief and smiled, "Now the demon clans from outside won’t be able to teleport here through their blood-sacrifice altars."
Rat Immortal frowned slightly. "That’s all it takes?" he asked.
Quinn nodded.
Rat Immortal still looked uneasy. "Are you sure? If those demon armies teleport over and blood-sacrifice themselves to revive that statue, it’ll be a disaster! Are you certain your two transmission arrays can disrupt their blood-sacrifice altars?"
Deaf also seemed uneasy, nervously asking, "Quinn, where will those demon armies end up if your three diagrams send them?"
Quinn hesitated. "I can’t change their teleportation—only interfere with it…"
Rat Immortal sighed. "So you can only interfere. That means the demon armies will still be teleported over?"
Quinn nodded, explaining, "Teleportation involves spatial shifting, which requires extremely precise spell calculations. By using two transmission arrays to disrupt the mirror-link between their two altars, even a tiny interference can cause a huge deviation. With such delicate mathematics, a hair’s difference means missing by a thousand miles; a blurry error, missing by ten thousand. There’s no room for mistakes. Once they activate both altars, then…"
"Human Emperor Quinn, this won’t work!"
Rat Immortal declared, "This is a matter of survival or extinction—we can’t leave it to a hair’s breadth or a blurry margin! No, I’ll fetch Poison King and have him poison all the incoming demons to death! You all come with me!"
He whipped up a demonic wind around the three of them, about to leave the underground space, when suddenly a majestic force surged across worlds from another realm!
The space around them warped instantly. Overhead, the vast stone ceiling twisted and spun, forming a massive vortex where everything spiraled and faded into nothingness.
Buzz—
A colossal beam of teleportation light burst from the vortex, shining straight through to the grand altar on the statue’s palm!
That light, coming from the deep void of another world, pierced through Deaf’s first diagram and struck the altar!
On the statue’s palm, stone figures stood solemnly half-kneeling around the altar, chanting deep, booming demonic incantations.
At that moment, Deaf’s second transmission diagram lit up, and the massive beam of teleportation light subtly shifted—almost imperceptibly.
Suddenly, countless demon soldiers appeared within the teleportation light—tens of thousands of them traveling from another world!
"Too late…" Rat Immortal’s heart turned cold.
Even as he thought this, everything changed—the demon army’s bodies twisted within the light, shattering into innumerable corpses!
The entire beam turned blood-red, filled with the screams and wails of countless beings—but it was all for nothing.
Rat Immortal shuddered as Quinn’s voice rang out: "Flood-Dragon King, mount me!"
Rat Immortal looked over and saw Quinn standing at the center of the third diagram, Flood-Dragon King now a dragon-shaped pattern along his back.
Quinn’s aura surged, though his expression darkened. "Gate of Bearing Heaven."
A towering portal rose behind him as the teleportation beam twisted toward him, demon armies buzzing as they poured through the gate.
Suddenly, a corpse was flung from the portal, thudding at Quinn’s feet—a demon body, limbs twisted, head sprouting from its chest, the result of a teleportation mishap that scrambled flesh and soul!
The demon’s body died horribly, while its soul was left stranded in the Netherworld!
Bang, bang, bang—
Suddenly, corpses gushed from the Gate of Bearing Heaven, piling into a mountain around Quinn in an instant!
The corpse mountain grew ever higher, filling the hall to its limits.
"Forgive me, everyone…"
Suddenly, he activated the third diagram. A massive teleportation array exploded with blinding light, sending everything in the palace away.
Rat Immortal and Deaf were also teleported out, their bodies appearing in midair. Before they could land, they saw a rain of severed limbs and corpses falling over the Great Ruins’ night—more and more bodies pouring from the sky.
Looking up, they saw, at the other end of the teleportation light, the Gate of Bearing Heaven towering in the sky. Before it stood the young Human Emperor, eyes glistening—he had just buried tens of thousands of demon soldiers.