Chapter 202: Battle with Linghu (2)

The sphere of light grew blindingly bright, its white glare swallowing the entire canyon and stretching shadows into thread-thin lines. Immense energy spread outward, lifting countless stones and withered branches into the air. They hovered weightlessly, as though pinched by an invisible hand, refusing to fall.

Jiuyou only had time for a single glance at the forming attack before he knew he could not dodge it.

He made no other wasted movements, drawing out every defensive magical treasure from his storage pouch. Pushing his mana and divine sense to their absolute limits, he layered over twenty defensive treasures above his head, their spiritual light merging into a single expanse.

He rarely controlled so many treasures at once. Each required a separate strand of divine sense to maintain, and his mana drained rapidly from his meridians like a fire burning in his marrow. But he had no other choice. He could only brace himself.

His gaze pierced the gathering energy to lock onto Linghu Shou, who watched coldly from afar. Like a beast backed into a corner, he searched for the target of his final strike.

Linghu Shou gathered his power and rose into the air, lightly pressing his hand downward.

"Fall," he said.

The instant the word left his lips, a sudden change occurred.

The sphere of light violently contracted for a split second, rapidly expanded, and then detonated.

A muffled bang rang out. The sound was compressed to its absolute limit, a dull thud like an impact against thick cotton.

Dust and sand rolled through the blast wave. Snowflakes vaporized into white mist before they could even fall, and the shockwave swept out in all directions, carrying a scorching blast of residual heat.

Jiuyou felt the ground vanish from beneath his feet as the force of the blast nearly threw him into the air. Fortunately, the twenty-odd defensive treasures above his head absorbed the brunt of the impact; otherwise, the shockwave alone would have shattered every bone in his body.

Once the dust settled, the canyon was simply gone. The surrounding peaks had been sheared off at their foundations, leaving behind nothing but a shallow basin buried in rubble and sand. Not a single intact rock wall remained. The residual energy of the blast still hung in the air as a fine, humming tremor, as if the earth had yet to catch its breath.

Yet the Five Elements Heaven and Earth Ring still hovered in its original place.

The halo of light slowly rotated amidst the ruins, as if the sudden explosion had nothing to do with it. The blast had not disrupted its rhythm in the slightest. Its spiritual light still flowed and its rings still intersected, as though it were the only thing in the entire wasteland left untouched by the devastation.

A scraping sound came from beneath a massive stone pillar. Rubble cascaded to the ground as a figure slowly stood up. Jiuyou lifted the pillar, which was over ten zhang tall, with a single hand and casually tossed it aside, kicking up another cloud of dust. His clothes were in tatters, and he was covered in scrapes. The spiritual light within his meridians flickered uncertainly for a moment before stabilizing.

Once he steadied himself, he glanced at the shattered remains of his magical treasures scattered across the ground. Of the twenty-odd artifacts, practically none had survived intact. His brow twitched slightly, but he immediately shifted his gaze toward the Five Elements Heaven and Earth Ring. Or, more accurately, toward where Linghu Shou was supposed to be.

Linghu Shou was gone.

Even the mountains were gone, so the array formation built into them had naturally been reduced to dust.

Jiuyou swept his divine sense forward, probing deep into the ruins, but found nothing.

Just as he was about to withdraw his divine sense, a sudden, piercing chill struck the back of his neck. It felt as though something ice-cold and razor-sharp was pressing directly against his spine. He did not turn his head. He threw his entire body to the side in a roll, practically sliding across the dirt. A streak of golden light grazed past where he had just been standing, carving a deep trench into the earth.

He steadied himself and turned to look back toward the Heaven and Earth Ring.

At the other end of the ruins, Linghu Shou slowly stood up. He was in a miserable state, his complexion several degrees worse than Jiuyou's. Multiple wounds across his body were still seeping blood, and his aura was noticeably heavier than before. He had already retrieved the golden flying wheel, gripping it in his hand.

Seeing Linghu Shou in such a state, Jiuyou reconsidered his earlier guess. The detonation of the sphere of light probably had not been intentional. It seemed more likely that Linghu Shou had not been able to fully control the attack himself, resulting in a blast that caught them both.

The instant Jiuyou spotted Linghu Shou, he acted without the slightest hesitation. With a flip of his hand and a flash of golden light, an array disc dropped into his palm.

It was the very sword array left behind by Perfected Jinli at the foot of Ember Sword Peak. He had never given the formation an official name, simply calling it the Ember Moon Sword Array in his mind.

His divine sense was heavily depleted. If he forced himself to control all sixty-three Ember Moon Swords at maximum power, he would only accelerate his own exhaustion. Deploying this ready-made sword array would be far more effective.

With a single thought, mana guided the array disc to deploy silently. It spread into the void as a golden curtain of light, sealing off most of Linghu Shou's avenues of escape. At the same time, he secretly consumed a few drops of Ten-Thousand-Year Spiritual Milk, and a fresh wave of warmth immediately surged through his drained meridians.

Linghu Shou had just extracted himself from the aftermath of that out-of-control sphere of light. Before he had even fully regained his footing, he sensed something wrong above him.

When he looked up, the golden curtain of light had already fully materialized. Clouds churned within it, accompanied by a continuous ringing. One golden longsword after another poked its tip through the clouds, like a flock of hunting falcons locking onto their prey.

Linghu Shou gritted his teeth and deployed three golden flying wheels. The weapons merged, transforming into a rapidly spinning golden shield before him.

The sword array rained down its attacks in quick succession. Every strike carried a heavy force, blasting blinding sparks across the face of the shield and forcing him to retreat step by step.

Under the relentless bombardment, fine cracks gradually appeared across the shield's surface, and his posture was forced lower and lower.

Just as he was about to be completely crushed, dozens of incoming golden longswords suddenly twisted mid-flight. They merged in the air to form a golden serpent demon, exploiting a gap in his defenses to bypass the shield and slam directly into his chest.

Linghu Shou tried to dodge, but it was too late. His dharma robe erupted with a burst of golden light, blocking the strike for him before immediately shattering. The sheer force of the impact still sent him flying backward.

Without his support, the shield shattered a moment later. The three golden flying wheels flew outward, tumbling through the air before embedding themselves in the distance. Dozens of longswords followed close behind, ready to pin him to the ground.

Linghu Shou did not hesitate again. A split second before his physical body was struck, his Nascent Soul escaped his flesh. The golden Nascent Soul hovered in midair, sweeping its gaze across the wreckage below before locking onto Jiuyou.

A purple orb had somehow appeared in his hands. Dense, pure soul power slowly emanated from it. Even from a distance, Jiuyou could clearly sense the weight of the soul power contained within.

"I was planning to kill you, then extract your living soul and refine it inside to give myself a better chance of success," Linghu Shou's Nascent Soul said coldly, his voice carrying the kind of resolve that only surfaced when a man was pushed to the brink. "But it seems I can only use it early."

He swallowed the purple orb into his Nascent Soul, and a shroud of purple cloud immediately enveloped his glowing golden form. Without a moment's pause, he turned and shot toward the Five Elements Heaven and Earth Ring like a loosed arrow, never looking back.

The instant the Nascent Soul plunged into the five-colored ring of light, a golden ripple spread across its surface. A moment later, it returned to calm. Like a stone tossed into deep water, once the ripples faded, absolutely nothing was left behind.