Chapter 189 (I): Yuanshi Tianzun Versus Crossing Pawn

Jiang Jingwei's crimson hair floated around her without any wind, each strand fanning out like seaweed. Granular flame particles floated and shimmered between her fiery locks.

A spherical barrier of qi enveloped her body. Its outer layer seethed with tiny red particles that darted about, colliding constantly, while the air inside it was twisted and warped with heat.

She was a different person entirely. The brash, scrappy teenage brawler had vanished, replaced by a goddess of flame that was both majestic and violent.

With an eerie crack, her broken forearm snapped back into place. The vengeful spirit clamped to her shoulder shrieked in agony, clearly scorched to some degree, yet it clung on with desperate tenacity, still draining her vital energy. It was sacrificing everything to follow its master's command. That was the most basic quality of a spirit servant.

A trace of seriousness finally seeped onto Zhao Chenghuang's arrogant face. "Berserker. As expected of the purest Fire Sage bloodline."

He clearly knew the reason behind Jingwei's sudden eruption.

Jingwei flashed Zhao Chenghuang a wide grin. "I'll deal with this annoying yin corpse first, then we can have a proper fight."

Before he could respond, she dropped her center of gravity and launched forward like a streak of living flame, slamming into the yin corpse's chest.

BOOM!

She drove it backward through a chain of explosions, her body erupting like a string of firecrackers going off one after another as she propelled the corpse toward the edge of the lava pool, away from Zhao Chenghuang. She seized the corpse by its ankles, swung it overhead in a full arc, and slammed it down into a lava pool.

The yin corpse crashed into the molten rock with a tremendous splash, sending curtains of glowing magma into the air. Jingwei plunged in after it, pulling the corpse's head back under the surface the instant it tried to leap free, holding it down under the surface of the pool of lava.

Zhao Chenghuang stood dozens of meters away on the far side, too far to intervene.

Instantly, he made a decision. He stilled his emotions, closed his eyes, and stood motionless. He would control the yin corpse directly, fighting Jingwei from the bottom of the pool.

The spectating Walkers above surged forward, crowding around the volcanic rim and peering down.

The surface of the lava churned with massive bubbles that gurgled ceaselessly. Dark undercurrents roiled upward from its depths, and the stench of sulfur thickened.

The battle beneath the surface seemed ferocious, but nobody could see it.

Zhang Yuanqing watched the bubbling magma as Guan Ya offered commentary.

"I once heard the elders in my family say that at the Transcendent tier, Fire Sages are hot-tempered, reckless, and impulsive. Those are their weaknesses. But at the Saint tier, those same traits become strengths.

"Their Berserker ability is like dynamite. The slightest spark sets it off. They can unleash their full potential anytime, anywhere, something no other class can do. Jingwei has the purest Fire Sage bloodline under heaven. She hasn't reached the Saint tier yet, but when she's pushed to the brink, it's incredibly easy for her to awaken the power hidden in her blood."

Zhang Yuanqing nodded in acknowledgment. "So that's how it works!"

Despite having a Transcendent body, she could still innately channel Saint-tier combat power. Jingwei's bloodline was enviable. If that was the case, she would have no problem handling a Level 4 yin corpse. After all, it was just a yin corpse, not a real Fire Sage.

He wondered how Zhao Chenghuang would cope without the corpse. That yin corpse was the critical pillar supporting his number one ranking.

As these thoughts spun through his mind, the lava erupted with a tremendous splash. Jingwei burst from the scalding liquid, the yin corpse dangling from one hand, its arms and legs bent at unnatural angles.

The rim of the volcano exploded with noise, as voices rose from every direction.

Jiang Jingwei was ranked sixth on the top twenty list, yet she had destroyed Zhao Chenghuang's yin corpse. The result caught most of the audience off guard. With that kind of strength, she should have been in the top three.

"Way to go, little princess!"

"Long live the little princess!"

A small group cheered louder than anyone else, led by a red-haired youth with his arms crossed over his chest, face brimming with pride. Behind him, his entourage whooped and hollered.

These Fire Sages are like a pack of huskies. Zhang Yuanqing shifted his gaze, looking further into the distance to gauge the reaction of the Taiyi Sect spectators. To his surprise, their contingent was remarkably calm.

Down in the arena, Jingwei casually tossed the yin corpse onto a stone pillar. She threw her head back and cackled, hands planted on her hips.

"Now that felt good! I haven't had a fight that satisfying in ages!"

Zhao Chenghuang opened his eyes. He didn't bother looking at his crippled yin corpse. The damage was within acceptable limits. After the tournament ended, he could nurture it with the Power of the Dark Moon. A couple of weeks, and it would be fully repaired.

He frowned at Jingwei. "You can't maintain that state for long. Why didn't you use items earlier instead of going to such extremes?"

He genuinely didn't understand her approach. Fire Sages had no innate means of countering spirits, true. But Jiang Jingwei came from a family even more prestigious and deep-rooted than his own. Equipping herself with an item to counter spirits would have been effortless.

Jingwei stared back at him with her hands on her hips. "Why would I use items? Where's the fun in that? I came here to fight. If I'm going to beat you, I'll beat you fair and square."

Zhao Chenghuang's cold face went blank for a moment.

"Fine. Then I won't use items either," he said slowly.

He put away the small clay figurine in his palm. "I'll beat you with the power of the Nocturnal Specter alone."

He opened his mouth and inhaled. The vengeful spirit still clinging to Jingwei's shoulder, the one that had drained a massive amount of her vital energy, dissolved into a wisp of dark smoke and drifted into his mouth.

The instant the spirit entered him, his eyes flooded with red, and his pupils shook violently. Veins bulged across his forehead as his face twisted in agony. He hunched over, roaring in pain.

His frame swelled. Muscles bloated with blood. His skin darkened to a blue-black hue with a metallic sheen, and his fingernails extended rapidly into jet black, razor-sharp claws.

Within seconds, Zhao Chenghuang had transformed into a ghoulish creature radiating black miasma: blue black skin, dark talons, eyes shot through with crimson veins. His aura was frigid and overwhelming. Frost crept across the pillar beneath his feet and spread downward. The scalding lava cooled rapidly, hardening into cracked black earth.

Above, Zhang Yuanqing's eyes went wide. What the...

The shock of what he was seeing hit him like a physical blow. Only a Nocturnal Specter could truly understand what he was witnessing.

At that instant, Zhao Chenghuang was radiating power that exceeded the absolute limit of the Transcendent tier, without the help of any items. It was just his own body, surpassing the boundaries of his Transcendent tier.

The method was simple in concept. He had deliberately stimulated the Power of the Dark Moon within himself, forcing it to go out of control, letting it rampage. It was like throwing oil on fire.

Zhang Yuanqing had experienced something similar. That time when the Demon Eye Heavenly King had gazed upon him with his vertical eye, the Power of the Dark Moon within him had nearly spiraled out of control, corroding his body and pushing it toward transformation into something inhuman.

It was exactly like what Zhao Chenghuang was doing to himself.

What is he doing? This isn't dancing on a knife's edge. This is squatting on the King of Hell's dinner table and taking a dump... Zhang Yuanqing's expression was one of pure disbelief. Was Zhao Chenghuang a cold, aloof Nocturnal Specter on the outside but actually a reckless, brainless Fire Sage underneath?

In the midst of his shock, a piece of information flashed through his mind: Zhao Chenghuang deliberately remains at the Transcendent tier, refusing to advance to the Saint tier.

That was a note the official Scholars had included in his entry for the top twenty rankings.

He's like Earth God. He's intentionally staying at Transcendent to grind a single ability to perfection. Earth God mastered his defense, making it invincible. Has Zhao Chenghuang mastered absolute control over the Power of the Dark Moon?

Sure enough, the top three were all monsters. Every single one of them was a freak. As that realization settled in, he sighed silently.

Jingwei looked surprised but excited. "Oh? You can unleash hidden potential too, just like me?"

"You could think of it that way. The real explanation is too complicated for you to understand anyway," Zhao Chenghuang replied, his voice now hoarse and sinister.

They charged each other simultaneously, a streak of black and a streak of red colliding at the center of the lava field, bouncing apart, and then slamming together again. Their speed was beyond extreme. Two lines, one red and one black, zigzagged through the crater, crashing together then splitting apart all throughout the space, like two bullets careening on irregular trajectories. Every impact was a thunderclap of an explosion, sending pillars of lava skyward.

Zhang Yuanqing had to put on the Eye of the Observer in order to actually track their movements. Each time they came together, the exchange was savage and devoid of technique. Each exchange was brief, leaving scorched burns and deep claw marks that exposed bone.

This brutish, violence-soaked style of fighting was uniquely Fire Sage. He could understand Jingwei fighting like that, but Zhao Chenghuang was a Nocturnal Specter. It made no sense.

Unless the cost of losing control over the Power of the Dark Moon is the inability to execute Nocturnal Specter skills with any finesse, he reasoned to himself.

Through exchange after exchange, wounds slowly accumulated across Jingwei's body. Zhao Chenghuang was burned again and again by her flames, and his bones were shattered again and again, yet his monstrous self-regeneration repaired every injury almost instantly. His endurance was terrifying.

As the battle raged, the churning surface of the lava suddenly heaved upward. With a tremendous splash, a massive lizard burst through the surface, its body covered in scarlet scales.

The creature was enormous. It stood seven or eight meters tall, with half its body rising above the magma. Its amber slit pupils blazed with savagery. Its jowls swelled, and it spat a torrent of molten rock at the two combatants.

The spray of lava fell like a cascade of dense rain, impossible to dodge. White smoke hissed from Zhao Chenghuang's blue-black skin as large patches of it carbonized.

Jingwei, whose aura had been flagging, seemed to catch a second wind. The lava splashing toward her broke apart on its own, dissolving into dark red particles that merged into the barrier around her body.

Her aura surged. With a massive boom, flames erupted from Jingwei's body, punching through the cascade of lava overhead. She rode the inferno forward to drive her fist into Zhao Chenghuang with everything she had. Before her Berserker state wore off, she would give it absolutely everything!

Zhao Chenghuang didn't dodge. His expression was ice cold. He pressed his fingers together like a blade and thrust forward.

CRACK!

Her right hook smashed into the side of his jaw. His neck snapped instantly, his head wrenching a hundred and eighty degrees around until he was somehow staring behind him.

But Jingwei had also driven herself onto his knife hand. His black nails punched through her body and emerged from her back in a spray of red mist.

Jingwei collapsed, utterly spent.

Zhao Chenghuang slowly twisted his head back into position and slumped to the ground, gasping for air.

The giant lizard that had emerged from the lava puffed its jowls, preparing to spit a second volley.

The red-haired elder serving as referee called out in a booming voice, "Zhao Chenghuang wins!"

The lizard wisely swallowed back the magma pooling in its throat, snorted, and sank quietly back into the volcano's depths.

The elder scooped up the gravely wounded and unconscious Jingwei and carried her back up to the rim for treatment.

Elder Hongying of the Taiyi Sect exhaled a stream of Yin energy that curled around both the Yin corpse and Zhao Chenghuang, lifting them back to her side and handing them over to the sect's disciples for healing.

The crowd erupted. The noise was deafening.

"Were those two really at the Transcendent tier? That was insane! The best fight of the entire tournament, hands down."

"Jingwei's ranking is way too low. That girl is terrifying. How can she unleash that kind of power? She almost beat Zhao Chenghuang."

"And that just proves how strong Zhao Chenghuang really is. What was that technique he used? I've never seen a Taiyi Sect Nocturnal Specter do anything like that."

The excited chatter continued for a long time. The fight had exceeded all expectations, leaving every Transcendent tier Walker in attendance stunned.

Over the previous five days, the audience had marveled at the star competitors' strength, admired their calculated strategies, and noted their abundant items, but all of that had been within the bounds of comprehension. They were strong, but understandably so.

But the power Jingwei and Zhao Chenghuang had just displayed? That defied understanding. Was that really the kind of power the Transcendent tier was supposed to have?