Pretending To Be A Boss

But its cold resistance was sufficient to rival the creatures of the Far North.

Gradually, the Taotie's fingers twitched, and those golden substances slowly began to crack.

Before long, the large mouth on its abdomen started to make chewing movements.

Outside of the iceberg.

Bai Mansheng and Tang Feiji were both astonished, for the entire iceberg started to show cracks!

It was like those mythical stories where a powerful being could slice through mountains and rivers with a single swing of their sword.

The massive iceberg instantly displayed exaggerated fissures.

Subsequently, large chunks of ice began to fall off.

[The combination of river ice doesn't happen in just one day of cold; accumulating soil to form a mound is not done in a moment. From Wang Chong's "Lun Heng."]

To Bai Mansheng and Tang Feiji, the Taotie's cries sounded like viewing garbled text on a computer—a similar concept.

But Tang Xian realized the seriousness of the problem.

This Taotie, seemingly always at a disadvantage, might have never treated this battle seriously.

Finally, the iceberg collapsed, and that gigantic golden statue slowly shed its layers of gold.

Its body, stiff due to the cold and the retention of metal, quickly dispelled that stiffness in a very short time.

Tang Feiji was enraged, and with a roar of a dragon, thunder descended!

Tang Xian shouted, "Tang Feiji, stop!"

Huge bolts of lightning fell, enveloping the entire body of the Taotie within.

The Taotie faced upwards.

A bizarre scene occurred—the originally massive lightning seemed to be sucked away by some other-dimensional space and started to shrink rapidly.

But the Taotie appeared to have been injured by it.

Tang Feiji, in disbelief, brought down several more bolts of lightning in succession.

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For a moment, the Tianque Plains trembled amidst the thunder.

Bai Mansheng, transformed into the Nvwa Snake, watched this and finally felt the full force of Tang Feiji's martial power.

What shocked her even more was that the Taotie dared to withstand these attacks head-on.

The first bolt of lightning struck the Taotie, putting it in an injured state.

But with the second bolt, not only did the injury fail to intensify, it seemed to lessen.

The arrival of the third, fourth, fifth bolts allowed the Taotie to bathe in the lightning, appearing satisfied.

[The lightning startles heaven and earth while dragons and snakes hibernate; abundant rain softens the wild grass and herbs. From Huang Tingjian's "Qingming." Pitiful and humble dragon, your lightning is truly delicious.]

Tang Feiji finally ceased his attacks, disbelievingly watching the scene unfold before him.

Tang Xian was equally shocked; the Taotie had demonstrated abilities that made its true potential clear to him.

It was like an unlikable coincidence.

Tang Xian was playing the role of the Taotie, and the Taotie indeed displayed some characteristics of the Eden demon child.

However, unlike the Eden demon child, the Taotie could devour anything to generate resistance and heal itself.

Although its resistance would not reach the absolute immunity of an Eden demon child.

It could still reduce it to a safe range.

The only difference was that one used touch, and the other used ingestion.

One was against all forms of attack on that creature, while the other was against a single ability.

It appeared the Taotie was much weaker compared to the Eden demon child but the Taotie in itself had the battle power of a catastrophe-level boss creature.

Ice, molten gold solution, lightning—none of them posed much of a threat anymore.

Originally, they thought that with a three-on-one plus some help from the Nvwa Snake, victory was assured.

Now Tang Xian realized that their odds of winning seemed somewhat low.

The most critical issue was that none of his abilities were effective against the Taotie.

The battle continued.

The Taotie, which had been taking hits all this time, began its attack.

The large mouth on its abdomen started spewing an unimaginably large amount of corrosive acid.

The acid surged out like a tide, flooding towards Tang Feiji and Bai Mansheng, yet it conspicuously did not target Tang Xian.

Bai Mansheng tried to counter with extreme cold, but the glacier was instantaneously corroded by the acid.

Tang Feiji, despite his incredible speed, still had a few dragon scales affected by the acid.

Those few scales vanished in an instant, appearing as minor wounds yet the pain seemed to bore into the marrow.

[The ant shakes the big tree; laughable for its overestimation. From Han Yu's "Adjusting Zhang Ji."]

The acid kept spurting out, and it was hard to imagine how much of this strong corrosive acid was in the Taotie's stomach.

Tang Feiji and Bai Mansheng were busy dodging, with no chance to focus on anything else.

This moment should have been the easiest to kill Tang Xian.

But the Taotie seemed to have ignored Tang Xian's presence altogether.

Tang Xian was certain that this was probably the strongest opponent he had encountered since coming to the Myriad Beasts Realm.

This creature's abilities were even more terrifying than that of Zero.

Zero could make all forms of attacks, living or non-living, come to a standstill.

Whereas the Taotie could recover itself and grow stronger by devouring all forms of attacks, living or non-living.

Besides, the creatures it devoured would have their memories plundered as well.

The Taotie had once devoured a long-eared ancient ape, including a wise old ape who was well-versed in the Myriad Beasts Codex.

Tang Xian didn't know this, but he knew that the Taotie was very familiar with him.

Unless it was an attack that could kill him in a single blow, it would not strike against him.

It would not allow him the chance to develop resistance. It was apparent that despite appearing arrogant, the Taotie was extremely cautious, with a high battle IQ.

This naturally had its advantages, such as not having to worry about being attacked before the end of the battle.

But it also had its downsides, namely that for the entire battle, he probably couldn't pose much of a threat to the Taotie himself.

Everything would rely on Tang Feiji and Bai Mansheng.