Chapter 247.1: Battling a Divine King with a Thousand-Zhang Saint Body! (I)

A Divine King!

Lu Changsheng stared at the enormous hand that blotted out the sky, sealing the space around it as though it had devoured everything above them. Waves of overwhelming divine might rolled toward him, each one carrying a pressure powerful enough to suffocate an ordinary Martial Saint. This was the power of a Divine King, an entity that stood far above Martial Saints and rivaled an Earthly Saint.

Divine Kings were, at their core, manifestations of Laws—and the grander the Law, the more powerful the deity. However, no powerful Law existed in isolation. It was supported and perfected by countless lesser Laws, with the deities representing those Laws forming a vast pantheon.

The Void Law, for example, belonged to a Divine Lord rather than a Divine King. Beneath that Divine Lord were numerous Divine Kings and True Gods whose individual Laws supplemented and perfected the greater Void Law. Together, they formed a pantheon that once ruled over all living beings in the world.

This was how the deities used to rule the world. Then, at some point, they were driven back into the Divine Region, where they went on ruling by the very same design.

The Hidden Mountain True God had clearly belonged to such a pantheon, and now that Lu Changsheng had killed it, the Divine King above it had descended to avenge his subordinate.

Lu Changsheng had never seen a Divine King before now. He still had not, not really. All he had was that one palm, wide enough to smother the sky, and even that was enough to show him the full might of a Divine King.

As the palm bore down upon him, Lu Changsheng immediately noticed a change within his body. My divine abilities are being suppressed.

Divine abilities were founded upon Principles, but the suppression did not affect all of his abilities equally. Only part of his Five Elements Decomposition divine ability had weakened, which suggested that the Five Elemental Principles themselves were being suppressed.

Fortunately, the effect was limited and had little influence on his overall strength, but it revealed something important about his opponent.

This Divine King was most likely connected to the five elements and belonged to a pantheon founded upon them. However, the suppression worked both ways. If the Divine King's Laws could restrain the Five Elements Decomposition, then it should also be capable of restraining the Divine King.

With the surrounding space completely sealed off, Lu Changsheng had nowhere to run. But rather than being afraid, he felt a kind of excitement he had not experienced in a long time.

Since forging his Saint Body, he had never needed to go all out against someone. The moment he revealed the Saint Body, his aura alone was usually enough to overwhelm his opponents. Even against powerful enemies, he had rarely needed more than twenty or thirty percent of his strength; at times, even ten percent proved enough.

But now, for the first time, he stood before an opponent who might force him to fight without holding anything back.

Since there's no way to escape, I'll fight!

Lu Changsheng braced himself for battle. This was a good chance for him to find out exactly how far his Saint Body, along with his divine abilities amplified hundreds of times over, could actually carry him.

Boom!

Lu Changsheng's Primordial Chaos Saint Body manifested at once, but it did not stop at a hundred zhang as it had before. It continued to expand at a tremendous rate, growing from one hundred zhang to three hundred, then five hundred, eight hundred, and finally close to a thousand.

An ordinary Martial Saint's Saint Body was only a few dozen zhang tall. Although size did not necessarily translate into strength, such a colossal Saint Body could not be weak.

Yang Mao stared at the towering Saint Body as Lu Changsheng's battle intent surged into the heavens. Is Fellow Daoist Lu planning to take on the Divine King directly? A Martial Saint trying to clash head-on with a Divine King? That's unheard of...

A Human Saint challenging a Divine King was no different from a Human Saint challenging an Earthly Saint. The difference between those levels was so vast that no amount of courage or madness could possibly bridge the gap.

Lu Changsheng is done for...

Still, Yang Mao could not bring himself to mock Lu Changsheng. At least Lu Changsheng still had the courage to fight back. He himself, by contrast, could do nothing but stand there and wait for death.

Lu Changsheng's thousand-zhang Saint Body drew back its fist and flung it forward. Powered by three immeasurable divine abilities, each amplified several hundred times, the strike shook the space around it.

Lu Changsheng had never thrown a punch so exhilarating and so unrestrained. He did not hold anything back or concern himself with the consequences. He poured everything he had into that one punch, and his body felt incredibly free and light while doing so.

As his fist surged forward, the momentum of the masses gathered within the ten sacred lands surrounding his Saint Body continued to flow into it. The Saint Body refined and absorbed that power, causing the force behind the punch to rise even further.

Crack!

Lu Changsheng felt an immense resistance pressing against him, as though the air itself had bound his body in invisible chains. Still, his punch tore through that restraint, and thin cracks spread across the surrounding space.

Yang Mao's eyes widened in disbelief. What? The space itself is cracking? His strike is on the level of an Earthly Saint!

The ability to crack space was a display of power only achievable by an Earthly Saint. However, Lu Changsheng was only a Human Saint, and Yang Mao could not understand how a Human Saint could have that kind of power. He could only watch in stunned silence as Lu Changsheng's Saint Body drove its fist into the enormous hand in the sky.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Heaven and earth shook as the fist and palm collided. The impact swept across several hundred li, making it feel as though the sky was falling and the ground was collapsing. Countless living beings dropped to the ground and lay there trembling, unable to do anything but wait it out.

At the center of the collision, the space split open with a deafening roar. Lu Changsheng's earlier punch had only left cracks in space, but the collision of these two strikes tore it apart completely. A vast black hole appeared where the fist and palm met, though it lasted only an instant before the space repaired itself.

Even an Earthly Saint could do no more than shatter space. Completely destroying it was beyond even a Heavenly Saint. Nevertheless, the sight of the space breaking apart was terrifying enough, resembling something like the end of the world.

The collision released a tremendous force that crashed into Lu Changsheng's Saint Body, but he held his ground. The Divine King's hand, on the other hand, shattered beneath Lu Changsheng's fist and vanished without a trace.

Lu Changsheng had just overpowered a Divine King in a direct clash.

"Impossible!"

With that, the deity emerged. It was so enormous that it seemed to cover the entire sky. Its overwhelming presence descended upon Lu Changsheng and Yang Mao, pressing down on them like the weight of heaven itself.

"The outer seal of the Divine Region remains intact," the deity declared. "No Earthly Saint could possibly have entered. How can a mere Human Saint possess power at the Earthly Saint level?"

A genuine Divine King now stood before Lu Changsheng and Yang Mao, and it could not hide its shock. Naturally, a deity like that would expect to crush an ordinary Martial Saint instantly. And yet, Lu Changsheng had destroyed its hand with power comparable to that of a Divine King. It made absolutely no sense.

"Nothing is impossible," said Lu Changsheng, his voice rumbling out from his Saint Body. "Judging by your aura, you must be the High Mountain Divine King. Was the Hidden Mountain True God one of your subordinates?"

"Indeed, I am the High Mountain Divine King. And who are you? A Martial Saint capable of matching a Divine King's attack cannot be an unknown figure. Even during the ancient divine war, someone like you would have stood apart from the rest."

That divine war had been fought between the deities and the allied forces of martial artists and immortal cultivators. Their battles had ravaged the world, extinguished countless lives, and nearly shattered heaven and earth. In the end, the deities were defeated and driven into the Divine Region. They had survived only because, as manifestations of Laws, they could not be destroyed completely.