"Damn," Zhang Zhiwei muttered, his expression suddenly hardening with lethal intent. "It seems some cowards chose my absence to move against General Cai E."
Without another word, the elderly Taoist transformed into blazing golden light and streaked away into the night, leaving Gustave sprawled helplessly on the crater floor.
"Eh, Taoist Tiantong," Gustave called weakly to the rapidly disappearing glow, "I'm still here, you know..."
But Zhang Zhiwei was already beyond hearing range. Moments later, the distant rumble of thunder and flashes of supernatural lightning confirmed that the Heavenly Master had found his targets.
"Damn it," Gustave sighed, resigned to his predicament. Since he couldn't move anyway, he might as well make the best of his situation. Tomorrow morning, after his electromagnetic energy had recharged sufficiently, he'd be able to return to the dojo under his own power.
With Prince Jingwu's Ba influence eliminated, the oppressive storm clouds had dispersed completely. Above him, countless stars painted brilliant patterns across the clear mountain sky—a sight he'd been too busy to appreciate in far too long.
"I should do this more often," he murmured, finding unexpected peace in his enforced stillness.
His stargazing was interrupted when a familiar beautiful face appeared directly above him, framed by cascading black hair.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk," Tu Shanyan said with mock sympathy. "How the mighty have fallen. This is quite pathetic, isn't it?"
Gustave's heart sank as reality crashed back. During the battle, he'd completely forgotten about the six-tailed fox immortal. She'd observed his devastating technique from a safe distance, waited to confirm he was truly helpless, and now...
"Ah, ma chère Tu Shanyan," he said with forced lightness, attempting his most charming smile. "You're looking radiant tonight. That battle really brought out your eyes."
"Oh, how the arrogant become humble when circumstances change," she replied with a predatory grin that revealed perfect white teeth. "You were so confident earlier. Now look at you—completely at my mercy."
Gustave tried intimidation as his next gambit. "Don't assume I'm defenseless just because I'm tired, Fox Lady. I still have ways to deal with troublesome spirits."
Tu Shanyan's response was to pantomime exaggerated terror, her hands flying to her cheeks in mock alarm. "Oh my! I'm so frightened! However will I survive such terrifying threats?"
Her sarcastic performance was so over-the-top that Gustave couldn't help but wince.
"Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river," he declared with as much dignity as he could muster while flat on his back. "Tu Shanyan, I'll remember this! In three days, I'll return to settle accounts!"
The classical Chinese idiom about fortune's changing nature sounded appropriately dramatic, but Tu Shanyan simply laughed at his bravado.
Having lived over a millennium, her supernatural instincts warned her that Gustave possessed some escape method despite his apparent helplessness. Acting on pure reflex, she lunged forward and grasped his robes just as reality began to waver around them.
Gustave had indeed activated the Gate of All Worlds, intending a strategic retreat to the Bamboo Staff. However, Tu Shanyan's desperate grab triggered an unexpected complication. The Gate detected her as an unauthorized passenger and automatically rerouted their destination to maintain dimensional stability.
Both figures vanished in a swirl of otherworldly energy.
They materialized above a park bench in what appeared to be a modern metropolitan area, immediately plummeting the final few feet to an undignified landing.
"Oof! lady, you're heavier than you look!" Gustave groaned, finding himself cushioning Tu Shanyan's impact with the ground.
"I am not heavy, you insufferable bastard!" she retorted, pushing herself upright before freezing in complete bewilderment.
The scene surrounding them defied every aspect of her millennium of experience. Towering glass and steel structures stretched toward the heavens, their surfaces gleaming with countless points of artificial light. The urban landscape sprawled endlessly in all directions, a constellation of human civilization unlike anything from her world.
"W-where... where are we?" she stammered, her usual confidence completely shattered.
Despite her age, Tu Shanyan had lived as something of a hermit. She'd rarely ventured from her mountain domains, and never beyond China's borders. This ultra-modern cityscape might as well have been an alien planet.
Worse, the very air thrummed with malevolent energy that made her skin crawl. Dark spiritual forces saturated the environment at levels that suggested proximity to supernatural threats of enormous magnitude.
"Where have you brought me?" she demanded, grasping Gustave's shoulders and shaking him desperately. Her voice cracked with genuine terror. "Tell me this isn't the demon realm!"
In her panicked mind, only the legendary demon dimension could contain such concentrated malevolent energy. But the presence of so many human life signatures contradicted everything she'd heard about that place.
"Stop it, stop it!" Gustave gasped weakly. "Stop shaking me or you'll finish what Prince Jingwu started!"
Tu Shanyan immediately released him, realizing that Gustave represented her only hope of understanding—or escaping—their current situation. If she accidentally killed him through overzealous panic, she'd be stranded forever in this terrifying unknown realm.
"Oh! Sorry, sorry!" she said, carefully lifting his exhausted form and carrying him to a nearby bench. Despite her supernatural strength, she handled him with surprising gentleness.
"Much better," Gustave said with satisfaction, even managing a weak smile from his new resting position. "You know, this is quite an improvement over lying in a crater."
"You—!" Tu Shanyan started to snap at his inappropriate humor, then caught herself. Given their circumstances, antagonizing her only guide would be spectacularly stupid.
"Brother Gustave," she said with forced sweetness, "I promise to behave perfectly from now on. Please, please tell me where we are?"
From the system information, it look like he arrived at Jun world, the Ultraman Nexus world.
Her tone carried such genuine desperation that Gustave abandoned his teasing. "Very well. We've been transported to a parallel universe within what scholars call the Greater Multiverse."
"Greater... Multiverse? Parallel universe?" The concepts meant nothing to her. Despite living through several centuries of human advancement, Tu Shanyan had remained isolated from developments in theoretical physics.
"Do you know what a Daluo Golden Immortal represents?" Gustave asked, seeking familiar reference points.
"Of course. The family elders speak of such beings sometimes, though Daluo status is purely legendary. No one has achieved that realm since the world's creation."
"Bon. Now understand this—beings equivalent to Daluo Golden Immortals exist in the world we've entered."
Tu Shanyan's eyes went wide with horror. "Impossible! How can there be Daluo-level entities here?"
"Perhaps I should explain my own background," Gustave said with evident pride. "My master is the Grand Supreme Elder—Daode Tianzun himself."
"That's impossible!" Tu Shanyan protested immediately. "I've encountered Daode Tianzun before. He hasn't achieved Daluo status, much less the power to create entire worlds!"
"The being you met," Gustave explained with a slight smile, "was merely an emanation formed by my true master's influence. The actual Daode Tianzun exists at levels far beyond Daluo—he is a Saint of the highest order."
"Really?" she whispered, her worldview crumbling.
"Would I lie about something so easily verified? Have you ever seen Daode Tianzun demonstrate abilities like mine?"
Tu Shanyan considered this carefully. The electromagnetic powers Gustave wielded were indeed unlike anything she'd witnessed from the Taoist sage in Lin Jiu's world.
"No," she admitted quietly. "Never anything like your techniques."