Even though the Willow Deity was a supreme titan, possessed peerless talent, and shone with unmatched splendor, her gravely wounded body was still blasted away.
Using the force of that blow, the Willow Deity hurled herself high into the sky and raised her hand to strike the Immortal Refining Pot. Immortal King Yan Cang manifested his body and likewise raised a hand to suppress her.
"Damn it, don't let her get near the divine pot!"
Only then did Wu Shang and the others realize what the Willow Deity intended. If her primordial spirit had not been wounded, allowing the Immortal Refining Pot to threaten it, how could someone with her spiritual power have shown signs of defeat so quickly? Her nine incursions into the Foreign Realm and nine departures had demonstrated the power of a supreme titan!
"Nothing but a dying struggle! Die!"
The instant the Willow Deity struck, Yu Tuo and Yan Cang had already closed in behind her. In that moment when a thousand pounds hung by a single thread, she made her choice! Without the slightest hesitation, she took the attacks of two peerless kings head-on, determined to knock the Immortal Refining Pot away!
Bang...
The instant the Immortal Refining Pot was knocked away, it plunged straight into the void, flying off to parts unknown. The Willow Deity also suffered devastating injuries!
She was beaten bloody, her blood scattering across the heavens. The blood of a king radiated golden-green divine light that illuminated heaven and earth! Some even dripped into the deep crater in Great Red Heaven.
"Heavenly Dao-Shocking Slash, Might Annihilating All Forms!"
Crimson demonic energy manifested, ignoring all laws. Immortal King Wu Shang's terrifying Law Immunity divine ability nearly drove those of the same realm to despair. Unaffected by All Laws-with that alone, he stood beyond ordinary kings!
Combined with his terrifying physical strength, his imposing presence shook the heavens. He could even contend for the title of the Foreign Realm's strongest king! Even the most ancient powerhouses dared not proclaim themselves supreme before him!
Such an Extreme Dao strike ignored the rules of heaven and earth. Said to annihilate the Dao, it shattered all forms between heaven and earth through sheer might.
Apart from heaven-defying individuals like Lin Yue, whose flesh had attained the Dao, almost no one dared confront his edge in direct combat. He swept all before him! At the very least, every art the gravely wounded Willow Deity gathered was cut apart.
Boom...!
Heaven and earth twisted, yin and yang reversed, yet this heaven-destroying, earth-annihilating blow was caught by a jade-like hand.
Wu Shang's terrifying halberd strike was ultimately blocked by the Willow Deity, but the price she paid was far too great. Her divine essence ran dry, her crystalline jade-like hand split open, and king's blood scattered across the sky!
The combined strike of the other four supreme kings arrived, slashing directly into the Willow Deity! Her kingly body began to crack. Had her art not possessed boundless, formidable vitality, her body would likely have exploded!
Clearly, the Willow Deity had still underestimated Wu Shang's strength and speed. With her grievously wounded body, she truly could not cope. Even having the smallest part of her retreat cut off demanded a price in blood!
A radiant figure was smashed down into the stars, even piercing through an ancient star! Her heaven-reaching Dharma Form vanished as she too was smashed into the deep crater! That figure of unrivaled splendor had also been struck down!
In the deep crater of the Great Red Land, a handsome young man lay quietly. The life-and-death battle outside seemed to have nothing to do with him. Yet now, beside him lay a beauty of unmatched grace!
"Cough... cough... cough...!"
The Willow Deity slowly propped herself up, but she was still coughing blood! Already gravely wounded, she had endured Wu Shang's all-out halberd strike before being hit by four kings again. Even uninjured, she would not have dared do such a thing!
"Alas... you fought bloody battles throughout heaven, earth, and the eight wilds, and your flesh attained an unsurpassed Dao body. Yet your primordial spirit was destroyed. Had you survived, you would surely have surpassed everyone and reached heights others could only gaze up at. What a pity. You were born in the wrong age! And I came too late, leaving you to fight the kings alone!"
Looking at the handsome young man lying quietly beside her, the Willow Deity spoke with regret.
Wuzhong was dead. Reincarnation was dead. Now this young man's primordial spirit had also been destroyed.
"Will the Nine Heavens fall after all, with everything turning to dust?"
The Willow Deity slowly stood up! Her face was calm. Even death could not draw an unusual expression from her.
She gazed up at the sky, where five kings were approaching.
"In today's battle, we will sweep through this realm and settle the fate of heaven and earth!"
"Indeed. I never expected this willow tree to come out and stir up wind and waves despite her grave injuries. Now we can send her into oblivion as well. An unexpected delight."
"Heaven's mandate is on our side. Such an opportunity is rare."
Watching the kings moving to surround her, the Willow Deity remained fearless and stepped forward to meet them.
Yet in that very instant, the Willow Deity, a supreme titan, felt every hair on her body stand on end.
Through the ages, through countless years of cultivation, she had never felt anything like this! Even facing death and a host of kings, she had shown not a trace of fear. Yet now, her body instinctively chilled.
Someone was tugging at the hem of her skirt from right beside her. Nothing like this had ever happened before.
Trembling, the Willow Deity turned around. Her face, once as still as an ancient well, was now filled with astonishment. At some unknown moment, the handsome young man lying beside her had caught her skirt in his right hand, making her feel something amiss the instant she stepped forward.
He wasn't dead! No, that wasn't right. There was no aura or fluctuation of life. His primordial spirit had just been utterly destroyed. How could he move?
Had darkness occupied his flesh, or was this some other strange phenomenon? Having experienced the most terrifying Dark Calamity, the Willow Deity reacted at once.
Her body was actually afraid on instinct. Without further hesitation, countless willow branches radiating golden light wound around Lin Yue's flesh. She tried to crush his body. If this young man had been swallowed by darkness and a new dark primordial spirit was born, a great catastrophe would truly arise.
Yet she discovered that even with all her strength, even as her willow branches snapped, she could not harm Lin Yue. He was even more terrifying than Wu Shang.
What kind of supreme flesh was this? Like the Great Dao itself, it seemed to be right before her eyes, yet she could not sense its reality. Was this the Dao? A body transformed into tangible myriad things, yet imperceptible!
This was flesh that had attained the Dao. Heaven could not destroy it, earth could not bury it, and the Dao could not extinguish it. It would even grow stronger and stronger with the passage of time.
Then, beneath the Willow Deity's astonished gaze, the young man beside her actually climbed slowly to his feet.
The Willow Deity's breathing grew rapid. She did not dare move, frozen like a cicada in the cold. At such close range, her kingly body felt fear, like a living creature's instinct. It was hard to imagine just how terrifying the flesh of the person before her had become.
Once Lin Yue stood fully upright, he tilted his head slightly, as if trying to confirm something. Then his right hand slowly reached out, and beneath the Willow Deity's astonished gaze, he gently tugged at her garment by her left hand! He was like a shy child!
Then, like someone who had obtained his favorite toy, the handsome young man's rigid face showed a faint upward curl at the corners of his mouth. Slowly, he opened his eyes!
His right eye was like a golden sun, its platinum light illuminating the heavens. His left eye was a sea of blood, with a dark moon rising and sinking within! Not a trace of life emanated from his entire body. Though black-and-white light shone in his eyes, there was no fluctuation of thought or emotion. He was like an object.
Yet the terrifying aspect of flesh that had attained the Dao was that even without a primordial spirit, it could act through instinctive memory, because the Divine Universes within his body had already become complete worlds of their own.
A world would not stop turning because someone died! A universe would not stop functioning because it lost a star. That was what a world was.
Though Lin Yue's primordial spirit had been destroyed, his Dao body remained undying. So long as no one disturbed him, he would sleep on until a primordial spirit was nurtured anew!
Not long before, however, the Willow Deity's scattered golden blood had stained him. His body then absorbed it automatically, and even his wounded precious body healed at tremendous speed. His flesh's memories awakened him! Instinctively, he sought the source.
That blood was familiar. He seemed to have bathed in such essence before, and it had been imprinted in the deepest reaches of his flesh!
"You...!"
The Willow Deity froze. She spoke cautiously, not knowing what the person before her intended to do!
There was no emotional fluctuation in Lin Yue's eyes. He simply kept staring at the Willow Deity before him without speaking!
Chapter 83: The Foremost Dao Body of Immortal Ancient
This was someone without a primordial spirit. He had no thoughts and could not reason, acting entirely on the memories of his flesh. It was far too uncanny!
As a supreme titan whose own origins were equally astonishing, she had seen no small number of kingly bodies without primordial spirits throughout the ages-indeed, she had seen many. Even now, beyond the Nine Heavens Border Pass, Second Under Heaven's body was pinned in place, his primordial spirit extracted and drifting somewhere unknown.
Yet without exception, bodies without a primordial spirit to guide them went mad. Even Second Under Heaven still went berserk from time to time. As time passed and the flesh remained without a primordial spirit for too long, that madness would become unceasing.
Yet this young man showed no sign of madness. When he looked at her, his eyes, devoid of emotional fluctuations, even revealed gentleness. This was the instinctive memory of his flesh.
The Immortal Kings of the Foreign Realm also noticed what was happening. Their swiftly approaching figures abruptly stopped, almost frightening their souls into the next world!
The scene before them had overturned everything they knew. To erase this young man who was like a god or demon, six kings had first surrounded him. Then the titan Wu Shang had arrived, and even the Immortal Refining Pot had been deployed. Not only had their kingly bodies cracked and their blood stained the heavens, they had exhausted every means and racked their brains. Only at the cost of three Immortal Kings' lives had they finally destroyed his primordial spirit!
What was happening now? His corpse had actually risen! Had everything they had done been in vain?
At the thought of facing such a monster again, an involuntary chill seeped into the kings' hearts!
"How is this possible? His primordial spirit was utterly destroyed! Why has he awakened again?"
Immortal King Yu Tuo roared!
"My sword struck his primordial spirit. I am certain it was destroyed." Immortal King Gu Xiu's brows were tightly furrowed as well.
"Is this willow tree's secret art?"
Immortal King Wu Shang spoke in a grave tone, yet showed no fear.
In the original story, he had faced the Desolate Heaven Emperor alone without the slightest fear. This time, the encirclement of Lin Yue had cracked his once-invincible flesh, and his immortal king's blood had dyed the heavens.
This was the first opponent of this kind he had encountered in a lifetime of battles. Law Immunity, Unaffected by All Laws-none of it mattered. Their flesh, surpassing the utmost limits, had clashed, shattering all arts through strength.
The winner stood, and the loser lay down. Unfortunately, he had met his match and had no chance of victory. Had he faced Lin Yue alone, he would likely already have been suppressed.
Yet he was not disheartened. He was even grateful to have met such an opponent, someone who could defeat him, reveal his weaknesses, and show him a higher realm! Even in death, he would not retreat.
Were it not for their opposing sides, such courage truly marked him as a peerless powerhouse like a demon king!
"Impossible! Attack together! I don't believe he's really alive. This must be that willow tree's secret art, something like controlling a puppet!"
Immortal King Yan Cang was frenzied. He was no Wu Shang-his composure had already shattered!
"Yan Cang, your heart is in turmoil. We destroyed him while he lived. What waves can he stir up after death?"
Immortal King An Lan's face remained unruffled as he looked down upon heaven and earth! Here was a peerless king whose composure had cracked, yet whose mouth remained defiant!
"Kill!"
At Wu Shang's command, his battle halberd unleashed a world-destroying blow without holding anything back. The kings struck together, like five pillars of divine light reaching into the heavens, blasting their world-annihilating strikes at the two figures in the crater!
Inside the deep crater, the gravely wounded Willow Deity had yet to recover from her shock when she faced the combined attack of the Foreign Realm's kings.
In haste, she summoned her heaven-reaching Dharma Form. All she could do was unleash her divine essence to its utmost and counterattack again. Even she did not know whether she would survive this time!
She could fight five kings because the Willow Deity Method was truly heaven-defying, and her own cultivation touched the mysteries of creation. Not only was her recovery astonishing, but her speed was scarcely inferior to the swiftest in the world. Her flesh was almost as strong as Wu Shang's as well. Otherwise, she could never have endured a direct strike from another titan while gravely wounded without her body exploding!
But that did not mean her gravely wounded self could take the combined realm-destroying strike of five kings head-on. Even at her peak, she would have chosen to retreat. Unfortunately, she now had nowhere to dodge.
In the deep crater of the red land, energy gathered like a terrifying blazing sun. Thunder Dragons surged in waves, and dazzling divine light pierced the darkness of Great Red Heaven. Ultimate energies intertwined, and chaos energy emerged, evolving worlds beneath that utmost power.
Yet the worlds that had just formed were destroyed again by the terrifying energy, repeating the cycle of birth and destruction!
Boom...! Energy exploded, and heaven and earth overturned.
The entire crater could no longer withstand it. It trembled, releasing earth-shaking roars.
The terrifying energy reduced the surroundings of the entire region occupied by Lin Yue and the Willow Deity's Dharma Forms to ash. They were even collapsing, yet...
When heaven and earth regained their calm, gazes from across the heavens fixed on the lone remaining crater below. Where the two heaven-reaching Dharma Forms stood, an invisible force influenced the rules of heaven and earth and every law.
That body, like a god or demon, sent chills through people's hearts! At the instant the attack arrived, Lin Yue's flesh had instinctively moved in front of the Willow Deity. Every attack slammed into Lin Yue's back, yet none could harm him!
The rules of heaven and earth around his heaven-reaching Dharma Form had been distorted, preventing anything from approaching. Only Wu Shang's world-shocking killing strike landed on Lin Yue's flesh, but unfortunately, it was useless.
Compared with when his flesh had first attained the Dao, the loss of his primordial spirit left it even less affected by the mind. Instead, it had advanced another step, becoming like the Great Dao itself. After all, a human heart always harbored distracting thoughts.
"What truly heaven-defying flesh. Acting on instinct, you blocked the attack for me. Is this to repay me for saving you back then?"
After the Willow Deity spoke, her divine essence was exhausted, and she nearly collapsed. Though most of the attacks had been blocked, Wu Shang's power could ignore the rules of heaven and earth, and part of it had struck her through the impact. Moreover, her injuries were worse than imagined.
Golden blood, suffused with green light brimming with vitality, scattered over Lin Yue's flesh.
"Cough... cough...!"
She coughed up another two mouthfuls of golden blood.
As though sensing that the person before him was injured, Lin Yue grew angry. On the previously unruffled face of his supreme Dao body, which lacked a primordial spirit, an instinctive coldness appeared, revealing anger others could feel.
The Willow Deity was even more astonished than Lin Yue now, for the young man before her slowly turned to face the five peerless kings surrounding them.
As for the kings of the Foreign Realm, the instant they saw Lin Yue turn around, everyone except Wu Shang shuddered.
"How is this possible? Absolutely impossible!"
Immortal King Yan Cang had spent the longest fighting to encircle Lin Yue. He had truly watched Lin Yue rise step by step. He had thought that with Lin Yue's primordial spirit destroyed, the nightmare would end. Yet now, Lin Yue had actually come alive again. Yan Cang had lost his reason.
Lin Yue's flesh began to pulse again and again. With every pulse, his heaven-reaching Dharma Form grew explosively, becoming even more immense than before.
A single instant was both a fleeting moment and eternity!
His heaven-reaching Dharma Form stretched across heaven and earth, twice as tall as those of the Foreign Realm's kings. The force field naturally emanating from his flesh distorted his surroundings. In his vacant eyes, only black-and-white light stirred faintly.
Laws could not be inscribed, and Divine Marks could not condense! Unless one broke through head-on with supreme, ultimate strength, there was simply no way!
"Damn ant! Your primordial spirit has been destroyed! You're already dead! You're already dead! Why are you still stirring up monstrous trouble? Yu Tuo, tell him! You already destroyed his primordial spirit! Say something!"
Immortal King Yan was raving. As though he thought Lin Yue had forgotten that his primordial spirit had been destroyed, he kept roaring, reminding Lin Yue again and again!
An Immortal King's state of mind had collapsed!
"Ah! Burn all Daos to ashes! Great Cang Flame Realm! Die!"
Immortal King Yan Cang frenziedly expended the vital essence that had just recovered considerably. Taking the lead, he charged at Lin Yue, determined to shatter the nightmare before him.
Chapter 84: Twilight Descends
"Don't act rashly, Yan Cang!"
Immortal King Wu Shang shouted, then erupted with divine essence and followed close behind, charging at Lin Yue.
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