Divine Abilities

Blood clouds and black mist twisted together into a single mass.

Eunuch Gu and Eunuch Lan did their utmost to intercept the two Commanders. Streaks of cold light flashed sharply through the blood clouds and black mist, and after only a few exchanges, the pained cries of the Longevity Cult's two eunuchs rang out.

In terms of combat strength, the Longevity Cult's upper ranks truly were no match for the Mist Blade Commanders.

On the wooden boat, five lineage heads who had followed the Longevity Cult here immediately rose into the air, weapons in hand, and joined the battle.

With seven joining forces, they immediately suppressed the two Commanders. The blood cloud's coverage rapidly expanded, faintly engulfing the black mist entirely. Even the sounds of the two Commanders' blades tearing through the air became indistinct.

Wu Tie staggered to his feet and first lowered his head to look at his left hand.

The state of his left index finger was exceptionally grisly. The flesh and skin had been completely blown away, leaving only three exposed finger bones. Strangely, although the flesh had exploded apart, the blood vessels and tendons attached to the bones remained perfectly intact.

Blue-green blood vessels and white tendons clung to finger bones of varying shades, making for a terrifying sight.

The Eighth Commander staggered backward, vomiting blood as he retreated.

His posture had become extremely strange, his upper body somewhat limp and unable to hold itself up. That was hardly surprising—Wu Tie's finger had shattered all the ribs across his chest and his thoracic spine. It would have been stranger if he could still stand properly.

"Your hand... there's something strange about it." The Eighth Commander spat out another mouthful of old blood, staring fixedly at Wu Tie's left index finger as he howled indistinctly.

Wu Tie crouched down and pressed his left hand against the armor curled into a ball. A stream of Origin Force roared into the armor. Strands of flowing light flickered as the ghastly pale metal sphere rapidly melted, squirmed, and once more clad Wu Tie's body.

Wu Tie silently cursed himself for being stupid.

He had already condensed Origin Force, and it could even leave his body to wound others. The energy contained in a trace of Origin Force was a hundred times stronger than his former Origin Power. In other words, during battle, he could have fed Origin Force into the armor at any time to maintain its complete form.

Next time, unless his Origin Force was exhausted, he would never again allow the armor to leave his body so easily.

Breathing deeply, Wu Tie shook his left hand. The armor completely covered his left palm, and he realized that he could not feel much pain from it either.

Drawing out his spear, Wu Tie pointed it at the Eighth Commander and silently closed in with swift strides.

An invisible force field blanketed the surroundings. Though Wu Tie seemed to be taking short, quick steps, each stride carried him seven or eight meters. Within a few breaths, he had rushed before the Eighth Commander. With a flick of his hand, he thrust his spear toward the man's chest.

The Eighth Commander spat out a cloud of blood. He gave a strange laugh, cupped his hands into a ball before his chest, and suddenly blood-red light erupted from his fingertips.

"Boy, what you experienced just now was the Illusory Mist Heavenly Net created by my Mist Blade's Illusory Mist Scripture... Did it beat you so badly that you could barely breathe?"

"What you're about to experience is the divine ability unique to my Mist Blade's Blood Blade Scripture—the Origin Breaking Blood Blade... You'll definitely come to love the sensation of wishing you were dead after being wounded by the Origin Breaking Blood Blade."

The Eighth Commander laughed low and viciously. With his thoracic spine and ribs gone, the shape of his upper body had become somewhat bizarre. A large mass of flesh and bone bulged from his back, his breathing grew much heavier, and his voice became hoarse and unpleasant.

Only the ball of bloody light between his palms grew incomparably intense, like a clot of congealed blood gathered in his hands. The blood light squirmed and changed rapidly, swiftly taking the form of a strangely shaped curved blade.

Foundation Establishment was the beginning of cultivation.

After Foundation Establishment came Xuan Sensing. According to Old Tie's explanation, it was a wondrous process of drawing upon heaven and earth's primal energy to comprehend oneself. During this process, cultivators could condense a power even stronger and more miraculous than Origin Force, which could be described as Mana.

After the Xuan Sensing Realm came the Chonglou Realm.

The Chonglou Realm was also called the Heavenly Pass or the Heavenly Lock. It was a lengthy process of climbing towers, passing barriers, or unlocking locks.

In the Chonglou Realm, cultivators could comprehend divine abilities!

Divine abilities were stronger than all moves and techniques.

The Illusory Mist Heavenly Net was a divine ability, which was why Wu Tie's five senses had been stripped away and even his invisible force field had been suppressed to a range of only three feet beyond his body.

The Origin Breaking Blood Blade was clearly also a divine ability, and a directly offensive one at that.

Wu Tie's spear stabbed into the bloody light condensed between the Eighth Commander's palms.

Amid a muffled BZZZ, Wu Tie's incomparably sharp spear, capable of easily piercing gold and iron, struck the bloody light and did not move in the slightest.

The spear tip trembled faintly, and the blood-colored curved blade formed from bloody light trembled as well.

The Eighth Commander grinned viciously at Wu Tie, and all ten of his fingers suddenly flicked.

A blood-colored blade light burst from the curved blade in the Eighth Commander's palms with a sharp and dreadful shriek. It traced an almost invisible bloody arc and arrived before Wu Tie in an instant.

With a HISS...

Just as the bloody blade light was about to cleave into his chest, Wu Tie activated his invisible force field with all his might. At last, before the blade light struck his body, he managed to tilt himself slightly. The bloody blade light hit his left chest. It cleaved a palm-long, hair-thin crack into his skin-tight armor, slanting across Wu Tie's shoulder.

A great amount of blood sprayed from the crack in the armor. The blood was... clear as water.

Wu Tie felt his entire body go numb and weak. The skin-tight armor, which had been extraordinarily sturdy these past days, had finally been damaged by external force.

The Origin Breaking Blood Blade... What a viciously sharp offensive divine ability.

Golden stars danced before Wu Tie's eyes. The weakness around his wound rapidly spread throughout his body. He let out a low roar, instinctively turned around, and fled wildly toward the Ancient Divine Weapon Camp with all his strength.

The Eighth Commander cackled, raised both hands high, and widened his eyes, about to unleash the Origin Breaking Blood Blade with all his might and kill Wu Tie completely.

Several thousand meters away, Old Tie, standing atop a small hill, suddenly opened his mouth.

A ball of blood-red flame surged from his mouth.

Purple-blue lightning roared across his rows of gleaming white teeth, transforming into a fierce, rushing thunder dragon that coiled around the blood-red flame.

The bucket-thick crimson fire and violet lightning drew a dazzling trail dozens of meters long. Almost the instant Old Tie opened his mouth and unleashed the fire dragon, it struck the Eighth Commander savagely.

The Origin Breaking Blood Blade in the Eighth Commander's hand failed to activate. The crimson fire and violet lightning hit his chest, and with only a soft BZZZ, the Eighth Commander's upper body vanished completely.

It was impossible to tell whether Old Tie had done it deliberately or merely happened to choose that angle.

After killing the Eighth Commander, the crimson fire and violet lightning he unleashed shot straight toward the Longevity Cult's wooden boat near this riverbank.

The hundred-meter wooden boat was blasted to pieces in a single strike. Countless broken, pitch-black planks spewed great tongues of flame and flew screaming and roaring far, far in every direction.

The lineage heads and elite warriors gathered by the Longevity Cult aboard the boat fell miserably into the river.

The attack had come too abruptly, and its force was too overwhelming. The wooden boat exploded into fragments as a whole. Everyone aboard suffered the violent shockwave of the blast, vomiting blood as they continuously fell into the water.

Probably less than one-tenth of the people aboard could swim...

After falling into the water, everyone else sank straight toward the riverbed like weighing stones.

Several lineage heads shrieked hoarsely as the surrounding Mermen and Frogmen surged over, scrambling to help their injured allies rise to the surface.

The crimson fire and violet lightning unleashed by Old Tie howled across the river, which was dozens of miles wide, and crashed through the middle of a watchtower.

The earth-and-stone watchtower snapped in half at the waist. The crimson fire and violet lightning passed almost grazing the walls of the Longevity Cult's stronghold. Along a stretch of wall three or four miles long, the pillar of fire swept tightly past, and the walls collapsed, scattering shattered stones and dirt across the sky.

In the end, the crimson fire and violet lightning continued racing onward for nearly a hundred miles before crashing heavily into the ground.

A tremendous boom shook the earth. Red light surged upward, and a mushroom cloud rose several hundred meters high. The massive explosion echoed back and forth between the ground and the ceiling thousands of meters overhead, making everyone's ears ache and buzz.

Apart from Wu Tie, who was fleeing miserably with golden stars flashing before his eyes, everyone else stood frozen where they were.

Old Tie's strike had directly vaporized a small mountain more than a hundred miles away, leaving behind a massive crater over a hundred meters in diameter.

Gales rolled over, sweeping up countless fragments of mushrooms and ferns, along with enormous amounts of soil and stone debris. The fierce wind passed over the Longevity Cult's stronghold, and even blew sand and dust onto the great river, slowly covering half its surface.

With one strike, the destruction was this terrifying.

Eunuch Gu, Eunuch Lan, and the Mist Blade's two Commanders all stopped fighting and retreated at the same time. They stared dumbfounded toward the rolling mushroom cloud.

The mushroom cloud had already struck the ceiling and was spreading outward along it.

Many stalactites hanging from the ceiling suffered the violent impact. One stalactite after another snapped off at the roots and fell, smashing into the ground with repeated THUDS.

Eunuch Gu and Eunuch Lan suddenly realized that this strike had apparently deliberately avoided the Longevity Cult's stronghold.

If that strike had hit the very center of the Longevity Cult's stronghold...

Not only the Longevity Cult's people—even the slaves and warriors brought by Mist Blade would have been wiped out to the last man.

"That brat... isn't alone... Some terrifying great power... is protecting him..." Eunuch Gu shrieked hoarsely. "This secret realm..."

Eunuch Lan trembled all over. "We... can't swallow this... We need the main hall... We need the main hall to send powerful experts..."

The Mist Blade's Seventh Commander suddenly turned his head and cursed furiously toward the small hill where Old Tie had just stood. "Madman... Madman... In this day and age, who would dare use a move with such power? Bastard, bastard! What if the ceiling is damaged... What if there's a lava river above us..."

Just as the Seventh Commander said, in this day and age, who would dare use such a wide-area, destructive divine ability or secret art?

No one knew whether the ceiling was sturdy or not. If it collapsed, and if there happened to be a lava river above it...

Looking at the end of this great river, at that fissure in the rock wall dozens of miles wide from which magma poured endlessly, it was entirely possible.

If a lava river poured down headfirst from the ceiling...

That sight would truly be too beautiful to behold.

Especially since there was a great river dozens of miles wide below, with more than enough water.

Once the lava and great river reacted wonderfully, high-temperature steam would sweep through the entire stone cavern. Aside from experts like the two Commanders, Eunuch Gu, and Eunuch Lan, who might escape, everyone else would be stewed until their flesh and bones turned to mush like fish in a pressure cooker.

No matter how decisive in slaughter or how cold-blooded and ruthless the Mist Blade Commanders usually were...

At the thought of such terrifying consequences, cold sweat still streamed down their bodies, and their legs went somewhat weak.

"Dual Divine Ability of Thunder and Fire..." the other Commander muttered low to himself. "And judging by its destructive force, that person's cultivation is at least a hundred times greater than ours... Though we are both in the Chonglou Realm, before him, we are no different from ants..."

"This secret realm... unless the Boss acts." The Mist Blade's two Commanders exchanged a glance, then silently stepped on black vapor and rose into the air. Trailing afterimages, they shot toward the distant great waterfall.

Eunuch Gu and Eunuch Lan exchanged a glance. They sneered at the same time, cast unwilling looks toward where Old Tie had been, then rose into the air atop blood clouds and returned to the far bank of the great river in a flash.

After a while, a hundred-meter wooden boat took flight. Eunuch Gu and Eunuch Lan led a group of lineage heads toward the great waterfall at top speed.

Whether it was the Longevity Cult or Mist Blade, the upper ranks of both sides had all fled... No, they had made a tactical retreat.

They did not dare face Old Tie, who could unleash such a terrifying attack. All of them chose to avoid him for the time being.

The Mist Blade's two Commanders were preparing to seek aid from the Boss they had mentioned.

The Longevity Cult's two eunuchs, meanwhile, chose to seek help from the main hall they had mentioned... It was worth noting that Eunuch Gu and Eunuch Lan seemed to have concealed the discovery of this secret realm. They apparently wanted to swallow the secret realm all for themselves.

Only now, after realizing they lacked the strength to swallow this secret realm, did they choose to report the news to the Longevity Cult headquarters.

Several palm-sized Metal Spiders lay hidden beneath thick moss, hearing every word from both sides clearly.

Wu Tie fled toward the Ancient Divine Weapon Camp at full speed.

The Origin Breaking Blood Blade was exceptionally vicious. Large amounts of watery blood plasma continued spraying from his wound. The evil force of the Origin Breaking Blood Blade had entered his body, constantly damaging Wu Tie's normal bodily functions.

The Origin Force condensed within Wu Tie's body actively met the evil force of the Origin Breaking Blood Blade. The two clashed continuously near Wu Tie's wound. The Origin Force Wu Tie had condensed was ground away strand by strand, while the evil force of the Origin Breaking Blood Blade, having devoured a portion of Wu Tie's vital blood essence, instead kept growing stronger.

Compared to the Eighth Commander's divine ability, Wu Tie was ultimately two major realms lower in cultivation. The difference in their strength was simply too great.

"Old Tie, you made me fight them..." With the invisible force field aiding him, Wu Tie leaped like the wind. From time to time, he sprang into the air and glided several miles, moving at extreme speed.

At last, before he could faint, Wu Tie rushed back to the Ancient Divine Weapon Camp.

Old Tie was already standing at the entrance of the Ancient Divine Weapon Camp. More than a dozen Metal Spiders swarmed forward, dragging the exhausted Wu Tie, who had collapsed onto the ground, back into the Ancient Divine Weapon Camp.

Other Metal Spiders busied themselves covering up the entrance to the Ancient Divine Weapon Camp.

"What elite warrior wasn't tempered through narrow escapes from death on the battlefield? Perhaps Grandpa here... pulled up the seedlings to help them grow a little?" Old Tie swayed his head as he walked into the Ancient Divine Weapon Camp, muttering to himself all the way.

"But with Grandpa here looking after him... there shouldn't be any great danger... Hmm, to unleash another attack like that, I'll need to accumulate primal energy for several months? This damned thing has abused its body far too badly."

"Fine, then for these next few months, I'll keep a low profile... A true hero doesn't suffer immediate losses."