Immortal Juhua stood before the Divine Ability Hall, watching alongside the Yellow-Haired Great Bear.
In the hazy void, one warrior after another continually took shape. They were fierce and savage, fearless in the face of death. Each wielded a weapon such as a great hammer, spear, or battle-axe, and from their mouths came the ancient God-Devil Script sound for "kill."
Blazing flames roared, and a sea of fire surged.
The instant they took shape, the Three-Eyed Warriors were completely engulfed and scorched by the nearly omnipresent sea of fire.
But as the warriors grew stronger and stronger, the blazing flames could now do little more than slow them down. The Blazing Spear Domain alone could no longer kill them.
"Each warrior isn't that strong on its own, but together they're a real handful—and they're utterly mad."
Immortal Juhua had watched every moment of Lei Zhan's performance inside the Divine Ability Hall.
At first, a sweep of flames had taken out a whole swath. Then they could kill a dozen at a time, then only a few. Now the flames could barely hold the warriors back.
Immortal Juhua turned to the Yellow-Haired Great Bear. "Senior Big Bear, my disciple has killed nearly a hundred thousand Three-Eyed Warriors by now, hasn't he? How many does he need to kill to obtain the divine ability left behind by the first master of the Abode?"
"How many?" The Yellow-Haired Great Bear glanced over indifferently. "When it comes to slaughter among the gods and demons, the more, the better. A hundred thousand? The slaughter has only just begun!"
"Only just begun?" Immortal Juhua was secretly astonished. "The first master of this Abode must have had a taste for killing. Nearly a hundred thousand, and that's only the beginning. No wonder the Abode Spirit looks down on me at every turn. And the War God Hall's trial can even bring out several different gods and demons..."
If a weak cultivator had to kill so many, even if they were defenseless beasts, their hands would go limp from the slaughter. Of course, these fierce warriors weren't living beings; they were just one of the methods the master of the Abode had left behind.
But a glimpse of the whole could be seen through a single tube.
At that moment, Immortal Juhua's thoughts ran wild.
He had sensed that something was amiss with the Water Mansion long ago, and had concluded that it must hold a great secret.
After all, someone who could use a precious treasure comparable to a Pure Yang Magic Treasure as the front gate of the Star Hall, and an Abode Spirit capable of summoning Void Return Divine Demons at will... There was so much more. None of it was something a True Immortal at the Celestial God level could casually arrange.
"Perhaps the first master of this Abode really was a mighty figure at the legendary level of a True God Dao Ancestor." Immortal Juhua mused to himself as he watched the scene displayed in the water mirror.
The young man in the scene was the only disciple under his tutelage.
"Lei Zhan, this is the first step on a ten-thousand-mile journey... You have to hold on until the very end."
"So the Blazing Spear Domain alone can no longer kill these warriors..." Lei Zhan watched the Three-Eyed Warriors advancing toward him through the sea of fire, enduring its scorching blaze step by step, and shook his head helplessly.
He had killed so many that he had nearly lost count. He only knew that the Blazing Spear Domain, formed by combining the Blazing Fire Domain Realm with the true intent of the Great Dao, could no longer deal effective damage to the surrounding Three-Eyed Warriors.
At most, he could wait for these fearless warriors to approach, then kill them himself.
"Kill!" Several warriors wielding great hammers and battle-axes charged at Lei Zhan again, utterly fearless of death.
"Get lost!" Lei Zhan's gaze turned cold. He swept his spear across, his technique profound. With a deft twist of force, he sent the warriors flying.
As time went on, the newly formed Three-Eyed Warriors had grown so strong that even if he killed them himself, it took several breaths each, unless he used Three Heads and Six Arms or Law of Heaven and Earth.
Killing these few warriors wasn't difficult, but if they held him up, he would be more vulnerable to attacks from behind.
"Water-Fire Grinding Disc, appear!" Lei Zhan willed it into being.
In an instant.
Rumble!
Rumble!
Deafening booms suddenly erupted throughout the entire hazy space. Then, wave after wave of towering seawater came roaring in.
The waves rolled on, each crest seeming like a towering mountain as they surged forward with the force of an avalanche.
Beneath that terrifying tide, near-endless seawater churned wildly. Every drop contained fearsome power, and the waves unleashed a terrifying force that ground everything to pieces.
At the same time, flames blazed and the blue sea roiled, blue water and golden-red fire constantly colliding.
As the two clashed, the phantom image of a huge grinding disc appeared.
The disc turned slowly, rumbling as it moved. With every turn, the surrounding space trembled.
The moment it appeared, the enormous Water-Fire Grinding Disc began crushing toward the Three-Eyed Warriors. It frenziedly ground them down, while they fought back and dodged with their weapons.
But the grinding disc was formed from two Daos that had both reached the Domain Realm of the Dao, as well as the true intent of the Great Dao, which contained the Great Dao of the Spear. The warriors couldn't withstand its crushing force for long. Soon, large numbers of them perished, while those who remained struggled desperately to hold on.
"Mm. Both Daos have reached the Domain Realm of the Dao, so the Water-Fire Grinding Disc's power has surged as well." Lei Zhan smiled slightly.
"But maintaining this Water-Fire Grinding Disc over too large an area would consume an enormous amount of mental energy. If I keep it within a thousand-zhang radius, the drain won't be too great... That way, I can kill many more warriors."
With a thought, the phantom disc that had covered more than half the hazy space shrank in an instant, until it was only a thousand zhang across.
A thousand zhang was the radius that put the least strain on Lei Zhan's mental energy. It was also enough to cover the vast majority of the Three-Eyed Warriors.
If those frenzied, fearless Three-Eyed Warriors wanted to kill him, they had no choice but to charge into the area covered by the Water-Fire Grinding Disc. But once they entered, no matter how strong they became, they could only be swept into the disc against their will and slowly ground to death.
Now that things had reached this stage, he naturally had to seek the smallest cost while killing as many warriors as possible.
Though Lei Zhan had summoned the Water-Fire Grinding Disc, he still had energy to spare. After fighting for so long, and carefully managing his strength, he had used up less than thirty percent of his divine power.
He hadn't used even a trace of his soul power, which had reached the level of Divine Sense. Even maintaining the Blazing Spear Domain the entire time placed little strain on his mental energy.
Time passed.
One warrior after another was ground to pieces by the Water-Fire Grinding Disc, then turned into wisps of gray mist.
At the very edge of the disc, more warriors continued to take shape and join the fight.
"This little fellow is clever, all right." Watching scene after scene unfold in the water mirror, the Yellow-Haired Great Bear shook his head with a laugh.
Those Three-Eyed Warriors weren't real living beings. They were merely trial mechanisms that their master, Daoist Sanshou, had taken some pains to leave behind in the Divine Ability Hall.
The warriors grew stronger with every kill, but they also had a flaw—not exactly a flaw, perhaps.
They had no feelings and feared no death. Their sole purpose was to kill—to kill anyone attempting the Divine Ability Hall trial.
And Lei Zhan had, in a sense, turned that weakness to his advantage, waiting at ease as he wore the warriors down one by one.
"Soon, soon," the Yellow-Haired Great Bear said, looking forward to it.
"Soon?" Immortal Juhua froze, then a hint of eager delight appeared on his face. "The Divine Ability Hall's trial... is about to end?"
"Mm." The Yellow-Haired Great Bear nodded indifferently. "Judging by the number of warriors Lei Zhan has killed, he's already killed enough to obtain the second divine ability in the Divine Ability Hall. He's not far from obtaining the first one, either."
"But he still hasn't shown his full strength."
"Mm. That's true." Immortal Juhua nodded repeatedly.
The Water-Fire Grinding Disc Lei Zhan had unleashed could still grind down a large number of warriors, and his disciple hadn't yet used Three Heads and Six Arms or Law of Heaven and Earth.
He hadn't used his Divine Sense to control objects, either. Although his soul had reached the Divine Sense level, when he controlled the weapons inside the Divine Ability Hall, their power could only reach the early Purple Mansion stage. Still, it was another source of strength.
Time passed, second by second.
"Mm? Have they already forced Lei Zhan to use Law of Heaven and Earth and fight within the Water-Fire Grinding Disc himself?" Immortal Juhua had been watching closely. Now, as the final result was about to be revealed, even he—a top Loose Immortal who had lived for millions of years—couldn't help feeling his heart race.
"Soon... soon." The Yellow-Haired Great Bear, by contrast, remained perfectly calm.
"Three Heads and Six Arms!" Lei Zhan willed it, and his five-zhang-tall body shifted. Three heads and six arms appeared at once.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Just as Lei Zhan used Three Heads and Six Arms, two streaks of light shot over from the enormous long table in the distance and landed in his hands.
"Kill!" Lei Zhan unleashed his divine ability to the fullest. With three spears in hand, he charged straight into the Water-Fire Grinding Disc, heading for the place where the Three-Eyed Warriors were thickest.
At the same time.
Rattle, rattle—
Beside the stone stele, countless weapons soared into the air from the enormous long table piled with arms.
Under Lei Zhan's control with his Divine Sense, every last one of them flew into the Water-Fire Grinding Disc. The weapons moved and spun with the grinding disc like fish swimming through water.
Rumble—
Rumble—
The slaughter continued. Working with the Water-Fire Grinding Disc, Lei Zhan controlled the weapons with his Divine Sense and mowed down wave after wave of warriors.
But as quickly as the warriors died, they formed just as quickly.
Fresh waves of warriors continued to emerge.
Lei Zhan slaughtered them frenziedly, darting freely through the Water-Fire Grinding Disc.
The warriors grew stronger and stronger. The disc's grinding force went from wiping out whole groups to killing five or six at a time, then only two or three, and eventually it could merely wound them. Lei Zhan had to step in and finish each one off himself.
But with Three Heads and Six Arms and Law of Heaven and Earth, it was as though three Lei Zhans were fighting at once. His killing speed remained astonishing.
Kill! Kill! Kill!
His spears struck like dragons, their cold light flashing in every direction.
Time continued to pass, and Lei Zhan's eyes grew bloodshot from the slaughter. Even when a Three-Eyed Warrior struck him with a weapon, he paid it no mind. He simply turned and cut the warrior down.
God-Devil Body Refining was the most suited to battle.
And Lei Zhan, whether in his past life or this one, had fought his way out of heaps of corpses, step by step.
Some brothers said the chapters were too short. I'll try to reach three thousand words. I'm still recovering, and I'm afraid you'll say I'm padding things if I force it to three thousand.
As always, thanks for your support, brothers. Please keep reading!
Keep reading! Keep reading! Keep reading!
Thanks to East Wu's Old Lord for the 200 Qidian Coins.
Thanks to Eagle Eye 112 for the Qidian Coins.