Aspiring to the Immortal Path - Chapter 598
Chapter 598: The Blood River Lord’s Flowery Killing Method (3)
The explosion of the Earthfire Burst Formation had not only destroyed a Blood River avatar, it had even blasted away a large chunk of the Blood Sea, as if someone had scooped out the middle of it.
The ferocity of the explosion was on par with a Violet Palace cultivator’s attack, many times greater than the blast of a Heavenbane Lightning Pearl. And unlike the Heavenbane Lightning Pearl, it could chase down the foe, and if it couldn’t coil around the foe, it could resort to ordinary attacks rather than having to detonate, though of course, those attacks were on the weaker side.
This was the Earthfire Burst Formation, one of the strongest formations in Tang Jie’s arsenal. Of course, the cost had been great. This single strike had cost Tang Jie more than two hundred thousand spirit coins.
The death of this Blood River avatar was critical.
It was like a turning point in the battle. The death of this Heart Demon avatar caused the balance of power to tip in favor of the representatives.
The Blood River Lord knew that if Tang Jie continued to destroy avatar after avatar like this, only defeat awaited him.
Brimming with anger and loathing, he glared at Tang Jie and shouted, “You think!? You’ve won!? No!!”
He raised a head, and three Heart Demon avatars fell back and turned into blood, merging with the Blood Sea.
As these three avatars disappeared, the Blood Sea’s power swelled.
At the same time, the Soul Transformation avatar that was still refining the sword spirit raised high the Immeasurable Sword and cut at space with it, cleaving open an extremely long spatial fissure. He howled, “Open, passage to Blood River! Blood River Behemoth, get out here!”
A heaven-shaking bellow responded.
It was a sound somewhat like the roar of a dragon and also like the roar of a tiger, its deepness shaking the soul.
Everyone could see a giant beast head slowly rising from the center of the Blood Sea.
It was the head of a terrifying beast that was covered in small scales and whose eyes alone were the size of a house. As it rose higher and higher, it revealed more and more of its mountain-sized body, and it now appeared like a giant bear, thousands of times larger than a normal bear, occupying almost the entire Blood Sea.
This Blood Sea that had a radius of several kilometers appeared like a bathtub for this behemoth, its bulk completely packing it.
The behemoth was still rising into the air, transcending all other existences. Compared to it, the hundred-meter-tall Na Shan appeared like a baby, and everyone else was like an ant.
“Heavens…” Na Shan groaned. “The Blood River Behemoth! It’s the Blood River Behemoth!”
The Blood River Behemoth wasn’t the product of some spell art, but an actual living creature.
It lived in the depths of the Blood River, hibernating at the river bottom, only waking once every one hundred years, and it fed on Blood Fiends. One could say that it was the Blood River Lord’s pet.
The Blood Sea Divine Connection was the Blood River Lord’s fundamental spell art, and through this Divine Connection, the Blood River Lord was able to cast various other kinds of spell arts. One of these was the ability to open a path and transmit energy. But opening a path required a huge amount of energy, and a single Heart Demon avatar wasn’t enough for it, which was why he hadn’t used it in that first battle. And in the Treasure Paradise, the fact that this was an independent world also made opening a path extremely difficult.
But the Immeasurable Sword had the ability to break through domains, so by using it to create a spatial fissure and then sacrificing three Heart Demon avatars, the Blood River Lord had just barely managed to open a Blood River passage. This Blood River passage couldn’t transfer the power of his original body, but it was enough to bring over other kinds of power.
The Blood River Behemoth was the power he was calling upon.
As the Blood River Behemoth finished emerging, it threw back its head and let out a thunderous roar that shook everyone to their core.
The Blood River Lord pointed down below and cried out, “Kill them all, my precious!”
Arooo! The Blood River Behemoth howled and swatted a claw down.
The massive claw was like a falling mountain, the sight inspiring despair.
Na Shan roared and swung his axe to meet the claw, stirring up a most vigorous resolve, but when the axe struck the claw, it was like stabbing it with a toothpick, only drawing a tiny drop of blood. Meanwhile, the behemoth’s claw swatted Na Shan away like he was a fly.
Blood gushed out of Na Shan as he flew away, the collision instantly pulverizing many of his bones.
“Big Brother Na Shan!” Hei Yan cried out in grief as he unleashed his Azure Black Dragon Flame, but it appeared like a little fire snake in front of the behemoth, not even able to break through its blood plasma.
The behemoth roared and swung its palm again, this time horizontally, seeking to sweep aside everyone.
Everyone retreated in alarm, but this arm was far too long to simply dodge, and they could only watch as it hurtled toward them.
Reverend Xuan Gui was the first to be struck, and in a flash, he went back to his original form, a black turtle, and retreated into his shell. But that tough turtle shell was like tofu in front of the behemoth’s palm, instantly splintering apart and sending Reverend Xuan Gui flying.
Before he could get up, a giant foot stomped him into meat paste.
This tyrannical strength also dealt massive damage to the bean soldiers, and even though Tang Dou had sensed that something was wrong and immediately ordered a retreat, some bean soldiers had been held back by the Blood Fiends.
A giant foot had descended from the heavens, piercing through the clouds, but half of that beast’s body was still high in the clouds, its giant head far above.
Holding up the heavens, standing upon the earth!
“Raaa!”
Its roars alone created mighty gusts of wind.
Just the jets of air coming from its nostrils swept up everyone like tornadoes.
And then something even more terrifying happened. The behemoth reached out a claw and grabbed a representative, dangling him in front of its eyes like a little chick. After “admiring” it as one would a delicious morsel of meat, it tossed the representative into its mouth.
It chewed a few times, and those miserable screams came to a sudden stop.
The appearance of the Blood River Behemoth had instantly rewritten the balance of power, a single swing of its paw inflicting devastating losses on the representatives.
Standing atop the behemoth, the Blood River Lord smugly crowed, “Tang Jie, do you have any more tricks?”
Gazing deeply at the behemoth, Tang Jie grunted and said, “Pure strength? I like it!”
I like it!
These three words had the Blood River Lord shivering.
He suddenly realized that he had never really seen through everything Tang Jie had.
Tang Jie always had more tricks than he had imagined.
A moment later, Tang Jie took out the Mountain River State Diagram.
With a light shake, a boundless world appeared.
“This is…” The Blood River Lord was aghast. “An independent small world? You have an independent world?”
He had racked his brains on a way to get into the Treasure Paradise because of the Treasure Paradise’s nature as an independent world, and it was only existences of his level that understood its significance.
This was something even more significant than a natural Dao armament, a summit on the endless Immortal path, a new layer, a new altitude.
It was an end, a terminus, a coda, the penultimate, second only to the Heavenly Dao!
Countless Immortal Platform Titans had put their lives on the line to get an independent and complete world.
But now, a puny little Spirit Ring True Person had an independent small world?
Although it was still a young world, far less mature than the Treasure Paradise, it already had the nascent signs of a world, so the Blood River Lord could not help but be shaken.
In the middle of his shock, a large figure charged out of that world.
The moment this person hit the ground, he began to grow larger and larger, exceeding Na Shan in size, and he only stopped growing after he had almost reached that behemoth’s height.
It was Tang Jie’s original body!
The original body’s true height naturally wasn’t this high, but the original body was also able to change forms, to shrink and also to grow. But his true strength wouldn’t change because of this. He had simply grown larger so that it was easier to fight with the behemoth.
The original body laughed and said, “You’re mine!”
He swung a fist at the behemoth.
The behemoth roared and swatted a claw at the original body.
Man and beast clashed, hand and claw slamming into each other like two mountains, the shockwaves from their impacts creating such powerful gusts of wind that everyone else was blown away.
The original body found that the clash had actually sent him back quite a distance.
This was the first time his original body was outmatched in terms of strength. He had already pushed himself to the stage of the 20-meter-tall giant, the peak middle level of the Diamond Body, but this was still far from the behemoth.
Even so, Tang Jie didn’t mind. On the contrary, he was even more excited.
His eyes blazed with fighting intent as he laughed. “Ah! Refreshing! Again!”
He roared and charged back in.
The behemoth was very displeased by Tang Jie’s arrogance. Roaring, it swung a palm, striking the original body and sending him to the side.
This behemoth was several times stronger than the original body, but this wasn’t enough to heavily injure him. Coupled with the original body’s formidable recovery ability, the end result was that the behemoth could keep sending the original body flying, but none of it did any good.
The behemoth became rather angry.
It bellowed, and its body glowed crimson, and then it swung its palm at the original body and sent him flying again.
The original body threw up blood and then brashly said, “You can get stronger? So can I! Transform!”
The Herding Yang Pearl activated, and the original body gained two heads and four arms.
Besides four extra arms, the Herding Yang Pearl also provided the original body a boost in strength.
This treasure that could multiply strength by three times was a treasure that every body cultivator dreamed of.
The original body swelled with blood energy, every muscle pulsing with power.
In his hands were an axe made of Mother Cloud Essence Metal and the Desolate Heavens Halberd, both having become larger.
The three heads declared in unison, “Again!”
He charged at the behemoth.
Another round of heaven-shaking collisions commenced.
This time, the original body was no longer sent flying by the behemoth, instead fighting evenly with it. The fierce shockwaves prevented anyone else from getting close, and even the Blood River avatar refining the sword spirit was pushed back very far away.
Before this avatar could land, the original body reached out to grab it.
The head on the right shoulder chuckled at the Blood River Lord, and the Blood River Lord instinctively had a bad feeling.
And then the original body lightly squeezed, crushing the avatar.
Blood seeped out from the original body’s fingers as the Blood River Lord tried to bring his body back together.
As it was reforming, the distant avatar Tang Jie shouted at Na Shan, “Na Shan, can you still fight?”
After a moment’s pause, Na Shan shouted, “Of course! I’m still alive, and we Hemos warriors can fight so long as we live!”
He stood back up and strode over to Tang Jie. Blood still flowed from his body, and his bones were still in the middle of healing, his entire body sending him terrible pain signals, but Na Shan seemed to not feel any of it.
Tang Jie chuckled. “If that’s the case… Minor Five Elements Combat Formation!”
Hei Yan and the others shared a look and then laughed, shouting together, “Everyone, to your positions! Minor Five Elements Combat Formation!”
Four pillars of energy—black, yellow, blue, and white—soared into the sky.
Tang Jie swung the Sovereign Blade, and a golden pillar of light rose up. “With me as the center, Myriad Transformations!”
“What? ‘Myriad Transformations’!?” Everyone was alarmed.
Myriad Transformations was the most complicated and most difficult variation of the Minor Five Elements Combat Formation, one of the three that they had never been able to pull off, and Tang Jie was using it now?
Tang Jie smiled. “Trust me!”
These simple words seemed to rile them up, and the four of them shouted together, “Okay!”
The four beams of light fell on Tang Jie, the five lights merging into a fantastical spectrum of colors, as if all colors in the world were here, and in the middle of all these colors, one could see all living things in the universe.
Myriad Transformations!
But a moment later, the pillar of combined light swayed, and its color became turbid and disorganized.
Alarmed, Hei Yan shouted, “Not good! The variation is too strong and is too difficult to maintain! The pillar is about to crumble!”
“Don’t panic!” Tang Jie replied, and a formation diagram flew out, creating another pillar of rainbow light which stabilized the Myriad Transformations pillar.
Tang Jie turned the pillar in front of him.
At this time, the Soul Transformation Blood River avatar had escaped from the original body’s grasp.
While the original body had herculean strength, he couldn’t grasp flowing water.
The blood flew through the air, not even daring to reform. But as it was in the middle of escaping, the Myriad Transformations pillar fell upon it.
The blood was sucked into the pillar of light, and no matter how the Blood River Lord struggled, he could not escape the surging lights within the pillar. With a bitter scream, he finally dissipated into smoke.
Another Soul Transformation avatar had died.
Tang Jie’s Flesh Millstone turned, taking the blood gem, and then he reached out a hand and grabbed.
The Immeasurable Sword had returned.
