# 568
Chapter 569: The McLaren in the Fog
“Plenty of gods could force their way into my Mindscape, but none have ever done it so effortlessly… you’re the first.”
Master Chen shook his head in resignation, slowly lifting the teapot to refill the empty cup in front of Isis.
Steaming water poured into the porcelain, mist curling upward as jade-green leaves spun gently, releasing a faint fragrance.
“Life always finds a way,” Isis said with a smile.
She turned to the uniquely Chinese courtyard outside the window, her jade finger pointing at a low stone overgrown with grass. “However narrow the crevice, life’s irrigation cannot be denied.”
The moment the words left her lips, a tender green sprout pushed through the side of the cup in Master Chen’s hand.
He froze.
The cup had been flawless, yet cracks now spider-webbed from the sprout’s base, spreading wider as the shoot grew…
Bang—!
Seconds later the cup exploded. The sprout—now thumb-sized—dropped to his feet.
Hot tea soaked his robe. He stared at the shards, bitterness pooling in his eyes.
“That was my favorite tea set…”
“Oh, my apologies.”
Isis’s smile only brightened.
Beneath the gloomy sky, the speeding carriage racing across the sea’s surface began to sprout dense vegetation—shoots, roots, buds—plants of every kind erupting at terrifying speed until the entire vehicle was smothered.
Another boom tore through the air as the carriage shattered from within!
Fortunately the page-boy wasn’t aboard; Master Chen had left him on the beach—involvement in a battle of this level meant instant death.
As the wreckage flew apart, Master Chen—grey robes blood-stained—was hurled backward, crashing into the churning waves.
Opposite him, a girl in an azure jacket stepped across the void and glanced toward the golden Buddha-figure locked in combat with Geb, god of earth.
After a moment’s hesitation she moved, appearing above the golden Buddha’s head.
The instant the carriage exploded and the master was wounded, Ye Fan sensed the terrifying aura radiating from the goddess of life—strongest among the four Egyptian Ennead present.
None of the four Human Apex here could match her… of all the people Ye Fan knew, only Zhou Ping might defeat her.
But Zhou Ping wasn’t here.
Seeing Master Chen gravely injured, Ye Fan’s heart sank. He looked up at Isis above him, chanted softly, and a colossal golden palm thundered toward her.
Air exploded under the blow, brilliant Buddhist light swirling as the palm’s lines rushed to fill Isis’s eyes.
She snorted, raising her own alabaster hand to meet it.
When the two palms collided, a shockwave hammered the sea, carving a circular pit kilometers wide that spun into a bottomless whirlpool.
Buddha-light around Ye Fan shattered inch by inch; he staggered back two steps, returning to normal size.
Isis, in her azure jacket, retreated only a single step.
Ye Fan’s gaze turned grave.
Boom—!!
Two vast under-sea boulders erupted beneath him, each the size of an island, smashing toward him with terrifying force!
Lightning-fast, Ye Fan sheathed his Straight Blade, palms blazing with blinding Buddha-radiance as he caught the twin island-stones, muscles bulging, explosive power surging.
He held the monoliths apart, teeth clenched like a wrathful Vajra, every fiber trembling.
One earth-god was trouble enough; now Isis—whose combat strength was off the charts—had joined in. The combined assault of two Ennead deities was far beyond him.
Isis’s azure skirt fluttered as she stepped across the surging sea to the straining Ye Fan and lifted a fingertip.
At that instant a faint crackle came from Ye Fan’s waist—like a signal connecting.
The pixel-style radio flashed red.
A cool female voice spoke:
“I’m here.”
Ye Fan froze, then the corners of his mouth tugged upward.
Whoosh—!!
The roar of rushing water swept closer.
Isis frowned, sensing something, and turned toward the edge of the battlefield.
There, at the fringe of the apocalyptic sea, the ocean itself seemed to awaken, dissolving into countless tiny pixels that gathered above the surface, forming pillars plunging to the seabed. Atop them, a broad pixelated highway condensed!
An elevated bridge rose from the sea, stretching out of the fog toward them.
Its appearance drew every eye.
“What… is that?” Guan Zai stared, bewildered.
“A highway?” Lu Wu, drifting overhead on a rubber duck, blinked. “A highway out of the fog? Impossible…”
Isis stood upon the waves, eyes narrowed at the rapidly assembling pixel bridge. After a moment she focused on its far end, still shrouded in mist—something was approaching.
Rumble…
A low engine growled through the fog.
A deep-gray, apocalypse-camo McLaren burst from the murk, its modified engine roaring like a beast beneath the dark sky. It tore through waves rolling onto the bridge, lightning-fast, racing along the elevated span.
Behind the wheel, a ragged black-cloaked figure steered one-handed, the other gripping the same pixel radio, gaze calm and fixed on the azure-jacketed goddess ahead.
The window slid down a fraction; sea-wind whipped in, tugging back the torn hood to reveal strands of silver-white hair dancing across her shoulders.