Qin Chuan hovered in midair, feeling the increasingly terrifying energy fluctuations below. At last, a flicker of change crossed his eyes.
He didn't choose to dodge. The Six Paths Reincarnation Eye rotated slowly, and a force diametrically opposed to Shinra Tensei began to gather in the palm of his left hand.
"Bansho Ten'in."
Just as the golden orb in the Golden-Patterned Sword-Toothed Tiger's mouth was about to shoot out, an irresistible, terrifying gravitational force suddenly seized its body!
"Roar?!"
The Golden-Patterned Sword-Toothed Tiger's enormous body stiffened. The Geng Metal Death Ray, only half formed, instantly went out of control under the pull of gravity.
It felt as if an invisible giant hand had seized it in a crushing grip, then yanked it violently toward the sky.
Its several-ton body rose helplessly off the ground. Its enormous form was forcibly "plucked" from the earth and sent flying toward Qin Chuan.
"Boom!"
The out-of-control Geng Metal Death Ray didn't shoot into the sky. Instead, it slammed at an angle into the ground behind the tiger.
Golden light burst. The earth was plowed as if by a giant plow, and a charred, bottomless trench a hundred meters long formed in an instant.
Along the trench's edges, all the rocks and soil had taken on a strange, glassy sheen.
The Golden-Patterned Sword-Toothed Tiger was already airborne, flying straight toward Qin Chuan like a massive boulder hurled into the sky.
Its face was full of bewilderment.
Repulsion? Gravity?
Everything that had happened today had completely upended its worldview of twenty-five thousand years.
Just what kind of monster was this human?!
Qin Chuan watched the Golden-Patterned Sword-Toothed Tiger he had "sucked" into the air. A cold glint flashed in his eyes.
This was the chance he had been waiting for.
On the ground, the Golden-Patterned Sword-Toothed Tiger's speed and agility could still cause him some trouble.
But once it was in the air, it became a sitting duck, unable to brace itself or dodge!
Qin Chuan gripped the Zhu Xian Sword tightly in his right hand and poured every last bit of Soul Power in his body into the blade.
Buzz!
The ancient, unadorned Zhu Xian Sword rang out with a clear, ringing hum. The strange, dragon-scale-like patterns along its slender blade lit up one segment at a time, radiating a heart-stopping aura of destruction.
The instant the Golden-Patterned Sword-Toothed Tiger was pulled in front of him, Qin Chuan released his control over Bansho Ten'in.
The tiger's body continued upward for a short distance from the force of its momentum, then began plummeting at high speed under the pull of gravity.
Its new strength had yet to build, while its old strength was spent.
This was its most helpless, most defenseless moment in midair!
"Now!" Qin Chuan's figure vanished from the sky in an instant.
The next moment, he appeared above the falling Golden-Patterned Sword-Toothed Tiger. Gripping the sword with both hands, he became one with the Zhu Xian Sword, like a black shooting star tearing across the sky, and slashed down with all his might!
He put everything he had into that strike!
He would cripple the giant beast in a single blow!
"Schlk!"
The sound of a blade sinking into flesh was dull and unmistakable.
The Zhu Xian Sword's peerless sharpness was on full display.
The Golden-Patterned Sword-Toothed Tiger's prized hide, tough enough to withstand attacks from Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts, was as thin as paper before this ancient, murderous weapon.
The blade pierced its nape and ran down along its spine, nearly splitting half its body open!
"Awooo!" A scream of unimaginable agony burst from the Golden-Patterned Sword-Toothed Tiger's throat, filled with endless pain and despair.
Scalding blood gushed from the massive wound like floodwaters bursting through a dam, raining down through the air.
"Rumble!"
The Golden-Patterned Sword-Toothed Tiger's enormous body crashed back to the ground, kicking up a skyful of dust.
It rolled and thrashed wildly, trying to stand, but the horrific wound that ran the length of its back had severed the nerves along its spine.
Its hindquarters had gone completely numb.
Qin Chuan slowly descended from the air and landed not far from the Golden-Patterned Sword-Toothed Tiger.
The blade of the Zhu Xian Sword in his hand bore no trace of blood. It remained ancient and unadorned, still razor-sharp, as if the gutting slash from moments ago hadn't come from it at all.
Qin Chuan looked at the giant beast howling in its pool of blood, his eyes utterly devoid of pity.
That was the law of the jungle.
It was either your death or mine.
He walked forward, preparing to deliver the giant beast its final blow.
However, the instant he drew close, a ferocious glint of mutual destruction suddenly blazed in the golden eyes of the dying Golden-Patterned Sword-Toothed Tiger!
It knew it wouldn't survive.
But even in death, it would drag this human who had brought it such endless humiliation down with it!
"Roar!" The Golden-Patterned Sword-Toothed Tiger summoned the last of its strength and opened its jaws wide.
This time, what gathered in its mouth was no golden orb.
It was a... black Soul Core!
That was the essence of its twenty-five thousand years of cultivation! It was going to blow up its Soul Core!
A destructive aura ten times more terrifying than the Geng Metal Death Ray from before instantly engulfed the entire area.
The air seemed to solidify, and even the light around them began to collapse toward the black Soul Core.
Qin Chuan's pupils contracted sharply. He hadn't expected the beast to be so vicious!
The force of a Soul Core's self-destruction was enough to flatten everything within a thousand meters. Even a Soul Emperor would have no chance of survival at such close range!
[Madman!] Qin Chuan cursed inwardly, but his body reacted at lightning speed.
He didn't retreat.
He knew there was no time.
Before the Soul Core's energy swept outward, he couldn't escape the blast's core.
His only path to survival was to stop it!
"Shinra Tensei!" Qin Chuan roared, thrusting his left hand forward.
Repulsive force, stronger than any he had unleashed before, surged like a river bursting its banks and slammed into the black Soul Core, which had already begun to destabilize!
He would use overwhelming force to push it back before it exploded, shoving it right back into the beast's belly!
Repulsion and the Soul Core's destructive energy collided in midair with a thunderous impact!
There was no sound, no light.
Only an eerie silence that devoured everything!
Space tore open at that point!
Black spatial rifts spread like spiderwebs, greedily devouring everything around them.
Trees, rocks, soil—even the light itself—were dragged into that void of darkness.
The Golden-Patterned Sword-Toothed Tiger's body was the first to be swallowed by the spatial rifts. It vanished into nothingness without even managing a scream.
Qin Chuan also felt the terrifying pull of the spatial rifts.
His body was dragged helplessly toward that deadly zone.
"Bansho Ten'in!"
At the critical moment, Qin Chuan locked onto a massive boulder several tons in weight in the distance.
Terrifying gravity erupted. Using the counterforce, his body shot away like a cannonball in the opposite direction from the spatial rifts.
Even so, the edge of a spatial rift swept across his left arm.
"Hiss!" Qin Chuan sucked in a sharp breath. A section of the black robe on his left arm had silently vanished. The exposed skin bore a wound deep enough to show bone, its edges charred black. Not a drop of blood flowed from it, as if the flesh there had been completely swallowed by the void.
He didn't dare linger. After several flickers, he appeared a thousand meters away.
Only when he could no longer feel the pull did he stop and look back.
The battlefield had completely disappeared.
In its place lay a gigantic, bottomless pit more than a hundred meters in diameter.
The pit's edges were smooth as a mirror, as if a god had scooped a chunk out of the earth with a spoon.
At the very center of the pit, the spatial rifts slowly healed, then finally vanished.
Everything returned to stillness, as if nothing had happened.
Only the gigantic pit silently testified to the horror of the battle that had just taken place.
Qin Chuan looked at the wound on his arm, still shaken.
[I was careless. I still underestimated how determined a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beast could be to strike back with its dying breath.]
He took a few deep breaths, calming his turbulent emotions.
The fight had been perilous, but at least it was over.
Then... what about the Soul Ring?
Qin Chuan turned his gaze toward the enormous pit.