Chapter 270: Fighting Wang Xunzhen Again (2)

The fierce battle in the void had raged for hours.

The life-and-death struggle between two supreme Deity Transformation Cultivators had long since devastated a thousand-li radius. Below them, mountains had shattered and the earth had fractured in every direction. Rubble and soil were ground into fine dust by the spiritual energy storms, reducing the once-beautiful Elegant Spirit Secret Realm to a ruined expanse of scorched earth.

Only the two figures locked in their midair confrontation remained unyielding. In the distance, the Heavenly Abyss Sacred Tree stood quietly, its roots firmly planted in the earth, entirely untouched by the catastrophic battle. Through countless perilous clashes and roaring spells, both fighters had subconsciously directed their destructive might away from the sacred tree.

High in the sky, golden sword shadows and scarlet baleful aura clashed and intertwined relentlessly. Layers upon layers of sword light and formations exuded a piercing killing intent, while the sinister, ever-shifting blood arts proved ruthless and domineering. Both sides unleashed an endless barrage of heaven-shaking techniques, the continuous deafening explosions causing the world to tremble and the sun and moon to dim.

After another hour of brutal combat, trading blows and unleashing their ultimate techniques, they remained deadlocked. Neither could suppress the other.

Jiuyou hovered steadily in the air, his gaze heavy and his heart chilled.

'Upper Realm entities truly possess a terrifying foundation,' he thought. 'Even with the boost of a Heaven-grade Spiritual Treasure, my own cultivation is not enough to break this deadlock and claim victory.'

On the other side, Wang Xunzhen floated amid a mist of blood, his expression incredibly gloomy. Disbelief and monstrous hostility raged within him. He hailed from the Upper Realm; even with less than a tenth of his cultivation remaining, he viewed himself as a god looking down upon the mortal masses of the Lower Realm. Yet today, a mere Deity Transformation Cultivator of this world had him completely bogged down.

"A mere Lower Realm cultivator—how does he possess such terrifying combat prowess!" he hissed through gritted teeth, his mind churning with anxiety. "Is history going to repeat itself like it did hundreds of years ago? Absolutely impossible!"

He had finally gained independent consciousness over the passage of time, breaking free from the shackles of his main body. He refused to lose. Even more so, he refused to wait for his fellow remnant souls to grow stronger, only for them to turn around and erase him through assimilation. He had to win this battle today!

Wang Xunzhen's resolve hardened, and the baleful aura around him abruptly skyrocketed.

In the exact instant his aura fluctuated, Jiuyou caught the fleeting opening. A sharp glint flashed in his eyes. Holding nothing back, he poured half of his majestic Sword Intent into his blade. High above, a colossal Ember Moon Sword materialized, massive enough to blot out the sky. Its golden light pierced the churning blood mist as it slashed down with the force of a thunderbolt, carrying the supreme might to cleave mountains and sunder seas!

"Keep dreaming!" Wang Xunzhen bellowed.

His hands blurred through a rapid series of incantations. The dense baleful aura around him converged madly, forming over a hundred hideous, writhing giant blood-palms. They layered together into a massive scarlet bulwark, forcefully meeting the descending golden broadsword.

Pure Yang Sword Intent naturally countered all evil and filth. The instant the golden blade struck, countless blood-palms sizzled and smoked, rapidly melting and shattering as their sinister hostility was burned away. Fortunately for Wang Xunzhen, his reserves of baleful aura were staggeringly deep, allowing him to barely withstand the catastrophic strike.

But before Wang Xunzhen could stabilize his aura, Jiuyou's next move was already upon him.

Jiuyou tossed the Five Elements Heaven and Earth Ring into the air. It instantly expanded to dozens of zhang in size, hanging high in the void. As its radiant light flowed, it forcibly extracted and devoured the surrounding baleful aura. Pure, dense worldly spiritual energy rushed in endlessly, forming a complete blockade around Wang Xunzhen in the blink of an eye.

Layers of spiritual energy formed a restrictive cage that severed his connection to the baleful aura and disintegrated the last of the blood-palm attacks, completely sealing off any avenue of retreat.

Wang Xunzhen's pupils shrank, his face contorting in shock and rage. "A Heaven-grade Spiritual Treasure! A mere Lower Realm cultivator like you actually possesses a Heaven-grade Spiritual Treasure!"

His shock quickly gave way to a monstrous, unbridled ferocity. His eyes turned bloody red as thick scarlet flames erupted across his body. A blurry, colossal phantom of a demon swayed into existence behind him, and his cultivation aura skyrocketed, violently smashing through layer after layer of its previous limits.

"I have lain dormant for ten thousand years, intending to rebuild my Dao body step by step. But since you're so eager to die, I'll gladly oblige!"

The berserk baleful aura abruptly contracted, coiling tightly around him before exploding outward into a heaven-piercing scarlet hurricane. The sheer force of it tore right through the spiritual energy cage binding him. Majestic gales swept across the landscape, causing the very void to shudder violently.

Within the eye of the scarlet hurricane, swirling lights and shadows shifted as the aura grew increasingly vicious and tyrannical.

Moments later, the swirling blood mist slowly parted to reveal a colossal, thousand-zhang figure towering imposingly in the void.

It had three heads and six arms, its faces twisted in hideous grimaces. Draped in bloody light and encased in cold, glinting scales, each of its six arms condensed a bizarre, baleful power. It radiated an innate, oppressive might that felt capable of crushing all living things.

Its demonic eyes swept across the sky before locking onto Jiuyou. When it spoke, its hoarse, brutal voice shook the heavens and the earth. "To force out my Great Void Ancient Demon Transformation, you have every right to be proud. Today, you will witness the true power of an Upper Realm Fiendgod!"

Jiuyou hovered in the void, his expression indifferent. His tone carried a bone-piercing chill and a touch of mockery. "These so-called Upper Realm Fiendgods talk a big game, but from where I'm standing, you're just a dying bug gasping for its last breath."

"Insolent ant! Die!"

The demonic Wang Xunzhen was enraged. In his true fiend form, his voice had grown into a hoarse, booming resonance with a bizarre, hollow echo that made the surrounding space vibrate uncontrollably. The thousand-zhang colossus raised all six of its arms, dripping countless streams of a viscous black liquid. The dense blood qi in the sky surged and converged frantically, instantly coalescing into a colossal scarlet demon blade that stretched across the heavens.

All six demonic hands gripped the hilt simultaneously. The monstrous baleful aura instantly locked down the airspace in all directions, completely sealing off Jiuyou's avenues of escape. Accompanied by the terrifying might of total destruction and peerless killing intent, the ruthless blade slashed directly toward his head.

"You won't kill me with just this."

Jiuyou neither retreated nor dodged. Facing the terrifying, oppressive blade light head-on, the Ember Moon Sword in his hand instantly expanded to hundreds of zhang in length. Compared to the towering demonic body and its scarlet blade, his figure was as insignificant as a speck of dust, yet he held his sword firm and soared upward to meet the strike.

With an earth-shattering boom, the two extremes of power collided. A berserk kinetic force traveled down the blade, causing Jiuyou's body to shudder violently as the very void fractured into countless tiny, spiderweb-like cracks.

Acting on a single thought, over ten Ember Moon Swords hovering in the void instantly converged and merged into the massive blade in his hands. The sword's light erupted, its power skyrocketing enough to barely withstand the fatal momentum of the scarlet demon blade and allowing him to steady himself.

Refusing to give the battle a single moment's pause, Jiuyou summoned all his remaining flying swords. With a shift in his sword stance, thousands of golden sword rays wrapped in Pure Yang Sword Intent exploited the brief stalemate to pierce directly toward the demon's vitals.

"A futile struggle."

The true fiend's voice was utterly devoid of emotion. Its bones popped and cracked as more than a dozen new, grotesque giant arms sprouted from its back and shoulders. They swiped forward in a dense cluster, forcefully blocking the sky-filling barrage of swords. The Pure Yang Sword Intent seared the flesh of the demonic palms, inflicting waves of agonizing pain, yet Wang Xunzhen callously ignored his injuries, entirely consumed by the singular desire to butcher Jiuyou.

Just as the swords and palms were about to collide, a teasing, elderly voice echoed from the void right behind the fiend's head: "Oh? Is that so? Did you really think he was alone? Do I not count as a person? Take a look behind you!"

Shock jolted Wang Xunzhen's heart. His demonic aura hitched for a split second as a sensation of extreme, fatal danger washed over him.

He whipped his head around, only to see a brilliant streak of five-colored light piercing through the void straight toward him. It was moving at an incomprehensible speed and was already inches away, leaving him absolutely no time to cast a spell or attempt to dodge.

The devastating sneak attack had already reached his demonic face!