Chapter 456 - 452: Too Late
Roar!
The draconic roar within his heart rumbled and thundered, shaking the platform! The pulsating vibration from each heartbeat was explosive, coursing through the stadium and causing it to tremble in response. Wei Wuyin felt Kratos’ might! Even the hulking elf was startled, his expression changing slightly.
The countdown ticked down, reaching thirty seconds.
"If it was before, I might be concerned. But now?" Wei Wuyin was talking to himself, a very rare event. If he was facing the Realmlord before him at the Soul Idol Phase, his only option was to unleash a flood of astral force backed by his Saber Heart Intent in confrontation, but he was no longer at that level.
Twenty seconds.
He had ascended to the Fourth Stage of the Astral Core Realm, the Spatial Resonance Phase, reached the Seventh Stage of the Mark of Mortal Myth, and raised the limits of his Astral Core! With ninth-grade alchemical products, he consumed and refined them with reckless abandon, strengthening his foundation to their utmost limits!
Fifteen seconds.
Clenching his fists, his aura blazed.
Ten seconds.
"Imagine if he was one-shotted by that big elf; how hilarious would that be?" The young woman pouted, still feeling indignant from her fearful refusal to accept this challenge. She sought verification that her decision was right, not fueled by fear but by reason. And Wei Wuyin’s life was the target that could assuage her unhappy heart.
The old man frowned at the young woman’s words. "Don’t act petty. It’s unbecoming." he sternly reminded her. While he was assigned to watch over her, he didn’t hold back in his opinions. Such words were extremely disgusting to him, and he didn’t think Wei Wuyin deserved such a fate. Right now, they should support him simply because he wasn’t an enemy and a possible ally.
The young woman seemed startled by the old man’s response, looking down and remaining quiet in thought. She wasn’t so narrow-minded that she couldn’t change her way of thinking. She was quite aware of her actions and words and their meanings, capable of reflecting on them.
Five seconds.
Wei Wuyin and the hulking elf stood in opposition with each other. Their auras were flaring wildly.
Grand Priestess Si De frowned, "He’s not using his Soul Idol?!" She recalled Wei Wuyin’s words earlier about the young man’s carelessness for not manifesting his Soul Idol, and that was against a Gravity Emission Phase expert. Right now, Wei Wuyin was facing a legitimate Realmlord!
Even the young woman lifted her head, asking the old man: "Why is he not manifesting his Soul Idol?" While she felt that Wei Wuyin’s defeat and thus death would validate her internal excuses to surrender before fighting, she didn’t actually want him to die.
The old man frowned slightly, "Just watch."
One second.
Zero!
A flash of light signified the beginning of the fight, and the hulking elf was not slow. He instantly conjured his Worldly Domain, blitzing towards Wei Wuyin at full speed in the hopes of bringing his young opponent within his Worldly Domain! Despite his size, he was extremely fast and in a single blink of a mortal eye, the distance between them was reduced to roughly ten feet.
Wei Wuyin was deeply within his Worldly Domain!
The hearts of spectators tightened!
The hulking elf didn’t smile or feel joy at this development, instead fully unleashing the might of his Worldly Domain, crushing Wei Wuyin under its immense pressure! Wei Wuyin’s form distorted and then exploded!
A gasp resounded, only a single gasp within the entire True Desolate audience, however! It belonged to the young woman! The others expected as much, their eyes and minds fully focused and intent on seeing the outcome.
The hulking elf’s expression changed. Wei Wuyin didn’t turn into a burst of bloody mist and fragments of bone, but was seemingly wiped from existence! This felt extremely strange.
Suddenly, his eyes constricted as he launched a fist towards his left. Instantly, a vast, one hundred meter-sized, astral fist was conjured and shot out like lightning! It crushed the air particles in its path, leaving nothing untouched.
Boom!
The condensed astral fist collapsed into a swirl of mist, utterly crushed somehow. Wei Wuyin’s figure was at the leftmost edge of the hulking elf’s Worldly Domain! He held a clenched fist forward as if he had thrown a fierce punch. There was a faint draconic roar lingering in the air.
"You’re no longer weak," Wei Wuyin joyfully chuckled. When Wei Wuyin clashed with Qu Xiaoying earlier with his physical strength and draconic force, he had suffered tremendous damage to his body. Now? He had destroyed a condensed astral fist with a single punch!
The hulking elf was astounded by Wei Wuyin’s raw strength, his heart nearly skipping a beat. Moreover, what was that feedback from earlier? Did he crush Wei Wuyin’s afterimage? It felt so real. What the hell was that? Unsure and uncertain, he decided to press forward with greater power! Before unfathomable strength, all tricks and schemes would scatter into nothing!
Woosh!
Bam! Bam! Bam!
The hulking elf charged with heavy steps, traveling hundreds of meters in a blink. He wanted to engulf Wei Wuyin within his Worldly Domain once more!
But Wei Wuyin’s figure was like a ghost, fleeing perfectly at the edge of the Worldly Domain, never intending no matter how fast he rushed.
The Worldly Domain was roughly one hundred and twenty meters in a spherical circumference, but Wei Wuyin stayed perfectly out of range. His speed struck the audience with awe and tension. To them, a single mistake meant death!
"Too bad you’re facing me during the Season of Regression." A voice emitted from Wei Wuyin’s ghost-like figure that erupted in the ears of everyone, as if it was directly beside them. There was a hint of pity within that was unmistakable.
The hulking elf frowned, halting his mad rush, retracting his Worldly Domain. He realized that he couldn’t match Wei Wuyin’s speed with his suppressed Spatial Force. Despite having three phases of cultivation beyond Wei Wuyin, his speed was not even close.
The Season of Regression prevented the conversion of ambient energies and mana, reducing a Worldly Domain’s potential strength considerably, and negatively affected their spatial force weakening their spatial movement and spatial prison abilities. He had tried to seal Wei Wuyin, but whenever the ambient spatial energies were manipulated to constrict and restrict, Wei Wuyin was entirely unaffected after a burst of grey light.
The Season of Regression truly weakened cultivators. It similarly weakened other cultivators as well. Without the support of mana, movement arts were slower and more costly than before. The inability to manipulate the ambient energies with Intent restricted the might cultivator’s could bring forth.
Unfortunately, Wei Wuyin wasn’t under the same limitations. He, however, never intended to use these advantages. "It’s best to end this swiftly," Wei Wuyin said, unusually talkative today.
With a clench of his right fist, Kratos thrashed and roared. Behind him, a faint image flashed. The size and appearance was difficult to measure, making it seem very surreal.
In response, the hulking elf’s aura surged like raging tidal waves, pulsating with tremendous power. The air currents were twisted and distorted, even the dark sky became slightly brighter from his power.
"Die!" The hulking elf howled, pushing out both hands as a boundless wave of astral force was unleashed! This wasn’t an art or spell, purely raw and refined astral force backed by his own power, but it engulfed half of the platform in an instant. The half that Wei Wuyin occupied!
He couldn’t face Wei Wuyin’s speed, and a Worldly Domain consumed Spiritual Energies, even more than Soul Idol, so a battle of attrition wasn’t favorable. After all, a Worldly Domain was transformed from a Soul Idol, so Realmlords had no Soul Idol! He decided to use his immense advantages of reserves to simply overwhelm with an area attack!
Facing a tidal wave of disastrous power, Wei Wuyin retained an expression of absolute calm as the wave crashed into his body at shocking speeds. His figure was instantly drowned in astral force, crushed under the heavy, imposing power and turned into dust!
The hulking elf felt the feedback of the impact, feeling Wei Wuyin’s body utterly collapse under his powerful astral force, but he once again felt strange. Just as he was about to manipulate the astral force to utterly crush any trickery, his eyes widened as he turned to his right.
He forfeited his control over the massive sea of astral force, and unleashed a lightning-like fist! His body glowed with boundless astral light!
Pa!
A hand clasped his fist, casually halting its monstrous momentum! The breathing of everyone was stuck in their chest, not understanding what was happening! Was Wei Wuyin regenerating? They saw him die twice now! And yet, he appeared unharmed and untouched!
Seeing his astral force-infused fist be stopped with ease, the hulking elf unleashed his Worldly Domain once more, encapsulating Wei Wuyin’s figure. He intended to trap Wei Wuyin this time, using his Spiritual Strength to restrict Wei Wuyin’s cultivation!
"Careless." Wei Wuyin spat a single word. The spiritual pressure he felt was child’s play. But since he dared to enter in range of the hulking elf’s Worldly Domain, he had already decided to end this!
The hulking elf was confident in his Worldly Domain, but when Wei Wuyin’s words echoed into his ears, he felt a sensation of deadly crisis. He had just remembered that Wei Wuyin’s spiritual strength was extremely abnormal! His eyes darted to his fist clenched by Wei Wuyin’s hand. His eyes bulged!
Without hesitation, the hulking elf erupted with incisive astral force at his shoulder! His entire right arm expanded like a balloon, the joint that connected his shoulder and arm exploded in a gush of blood, flesh, and bone, and the hulking elf swiftly retreated while engulfed by spatial force!
He retreated for an entire mile!
Wei Wuyin stood there with the remnants of the severed arm in his hand, feeling awed by the sheer decisiveness of this Realmlord. A faint smile surfaced on his handsome face, throwing the arm away and causing it to continue its explosion!
"Too late." Wei Wuyin said, his figure vanishing.
The hulking elf was confused as he stopped his retreat, hearing Wei Wuyin’s words. Then, his eyes constricted as he felt a foreign force inside his body erupt like a parasitic bomb. He hurriedly shot forward with an explosive leap, traveling a hundred meters in the blink of a mortal eye, but the light of fear was inescapable within the hulking elf’s eyes.
It was indeed too late.
But...how?
Was his last thought.
Wei Wuyin held a head in his hand, the spine still attached, dripping with spinal fluid and discolored blood. It wiggled like a subdued serpent. The headless body of the hulking elf was a hundred meters away. It turned around as if still listening to the predetermined commands of its lost brain, twisting and readying to unleash a ferocious punch with its remaining arm before it halted.
Forever.
With the head held in Wei Wuyin’s hand, the world went silent. There was just confusion, complete and utter confusion.
Thud! Crash!
The body of the Realmlord kneeled as if begging for mercy, and then at the next second, collapsed with endless blood gushing from its twisted neck.