"Bastard! Lightning arrows!" At Lei Shang's furious roar, countless bolts of lightning condensed into arrows and shot toward Shi Yi. Peng wings unfurled behind Shi Yi, carrying him through the air at an astonishing speed, many times faster than before.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Shi Yi dodged the lightning arrows behind him, sending them plunging into mountains and the ground, where they triggered earth-shaking explosions. Lightning runes gathered in his hand to form a spear. Seizing an opening, he hurled it toward Lei Shang, blasting up billowing clouds of dust.
Dragging this out won't work. I have to find a way to break through that mysterious luminous mist around him and let the Heavenly Thunder Valley sense his presence. Only then will I have a chance of winning. I've got it! Shi Yi's eyes lit up at the thought, and a streak of silver light flashed and vanished.
The man and beast continued exchanging blows. Whenever Lei Shang stopped using Treasure Arts and tried to fight Shi Yi at close quarters, Shi Yi always pulled away. Lei Shang was fast, but Shi Yi's speed was no less impressive.
Shi Yi's way of fighting infuriated Lei Shang. He clearly held every advantage, yet he could not defeat his opponent. He had never imagined that a day would come when he would feel helpless in a contest of speed.
Of course, Shi Yi's cultivation realm was much lower. Even when they traded Treasure Arts, blood seeped from his mouth, staining his once snow-white clothes red.
These wounds made Shi Yi look miserable, but they had not damaged his foundations. He had discovered that the Primordial Chaos Heaven-Refining Grand Formation engraved within his body could refine away part of an enemy's attack power. He had found this out while fighting Bai Ling.
When he discovered this function of the Primordial Chaos Heaven-Refining Grand Formation, joy had nearly blossomed in Shi Yi's heart. It meant that once he perfected the formation, he could become immune to spells and techniques. Even purely physical attacks could have some of their force dissipated. This was also what gave Shi Yi the confidence to challenge someone in the Divine Fire Realm.
"Human, now you're scurrying about like a rat! Don't you even have the courage to face me head-on? I thought you had some real ability, but it turns out that's all you amount to. Where did all your earlier arrogance go?" Lei Shang roared furiously.
"Old bastard, all those years you've lived might as well have gone into a dog! At your age, you've only reached the Divine Fire Realm, and you can't even finish off an Array Formation Realm cultivator like me. If I were you, I'd have found a rock and smashed my head against it long ago, rather than come out here to disgrace myself and blacken my clan's name," Shi Yi retorted without the slightest courtesy. What a joke. Trying to trade insults with me? I'll curse you to death.
"Ah! You're infuriating me! You've made me angry!" As he spoke, an enormous Thunder Shadow Leopard Treasure Art took shape and charged toward Shi Yi, spitting beam after beam of light from its mouth.
Just as Lei Shang flew into a rage, lightning as black as a sea of ink came surging toward them from afar.
It's finally here. Shi Yi let out a long breath of relief inwardly.
The sea of lightning drew closer and closer to the battlefield. Lei Shang sensed the strange phenomenon in the sky as well, and his pupils contracted sharply. How could he fail to understand Shi Yi's plan now? Shi Yi had sent a clone elsewhere to gather lightning, intending to use the lightning within the Thunderclap Valley to fight him.
"Roar!" Watching the lightning hurtle toward him through the sky, Lei Shang let out a roar of unwillingness. His first thought was to retreat. As long as the green hills remained, there would be no shortage of firewood. That human was still trapped within the Thunderclap Valley, after all.
Lei Shang wanted to retreat, but how could Shi Yi let him leave unscathed? He intended to seize this opportunity to kill Lei Shang outright or severely wound him. Otherwise, he would remain trapped within the Heavenly Thunder Valley.
Now the situation had reversed: Lei Shang fled ahead while Shi Yi pursued from behind. From time to time, they exchanged blasts of various Treasure Arts. Wild, violent energy exploded, shaking space and pulverizing rock. They raced along like wind and lightning, every attack aimed at killing the other.
"Roar! Human, you're courting death!" After taking a hit from one of Shi Yi's Treasure Arts, Lei Shang was utterly enraged. He was a dignified Divine Fire Realm cultivator. Among all the cultivators in this Cave-Dwelling World, apart from that lord, those who could rival him could be counted on one hand. Yet today, an Array Formation cultivator of the Human Race was chasing him down. It was a humiliation beyond bearing.
Lei Shang turned around, his body swelling to the size of a mountain, and rammed into Shi Yi.
Boom!
Caught off guard, Shi Yi took the full force of Lei Shang's charge. His body flew backward, smashing through one mountaintop after another before finally blasting a crater dozens of meters across into the ground. His entire body was embedded underground.
"Damn it. If I hadn't put up my defenses in time, that blow alone would have left me unable to move," Shi Yi muttered as he rose from the bottom of the crater.
He was in terrible shape. Blood streamed from all seven openings in his head, several bones were broken, and his internal organs had suffered varying degrees of damage. He took out some medicinal herbs and swallowed them whole, and his body began slowly repairing itself. These herbs were spoils Shi Yi had taken from Bai Ling. He had to admit that, as a Venerable, Bai Ling had possessed some good things.
Before Shi Yi could recover much, an enormous forepaw came crashing down again. He unfurled his thunderbird wings once more and took flight.
"You're hopping around like a filthy bug! What are you hiding from? Weren't you so arrogant?" Lei Shang roared, his eyes bloodshot and his temper utterly out of control.
In truth, Shi Yi was deeply frustrated as well. This fellow had suddenly become so savage, as though he had thrown his brains away. Shi Yi even wondered whether his cultivation had driven him into qi deviation.
After entangling Lei Shang for a while, what Shi Yi had been waiting for finally arrived. His clone had activated the Thunder-Avoiding Divine Needle, drawing over a sea formed from endless black lightning.
"Old bastard, you had your fun beating me just now. It's your turn to taste a beating!" Shi Yi roared.
Ignoring his wounds, Shi Yi unleashed his divine power and drove the Thunder-Avoiding Divine Needle with all his strength, pressing the entire sea of lightning down upon Lei Shang.
"Roar!"
Before long, Lei Shang's anguished howls rang out from within the sea of lightning. Although he possessed something that concealed him from the Heavenly Thunder Valley's senses, this lightning was being driven by Shi Yi. Naturally, his concealment item no longer worked.
The sea of lightning churned, its electric radiance writhing like dragons. Lei Shang stood within it, his body already reduced in size and drenched in blood. Mysterious runes surged around him as he tried to resist the endless power of lightning. Every bolt that struck seemed poised to tear him apart, but he clenched his teeth, an unyielding flame burning in his eyes. The sea of lightning roared like the wrath of heaven and earth, while Lei Shang searched for a thread of survival amid its destructive might.
Huh, he's regained his senses now. Could he really have suffered qi deviation just then? And now he's actually recovered. What a pity, Shi Yi sighed inwardly.
"Ah! You filthy human bug! Once I get out of here, I'll rip out your tendons, flay your skin, and imprison your soul to torture it every day! I'll make you wish you were dead!" Lei Shang cursed from within the sea of lightning.
Shi Yi was not about to indulge him either. "Old bastard, wait until you get out before you talk. Last time, you escaped
by blowing up your own weapon. Let's see whether you have another weapon like that this time. If you can't get out, I'll pay your home a visit and send all your descendants down to join you, so your enemies won't enslave them in this world."
Shi Yi poured even more divine power into the Thunder-Avoiding Divine Needle, and the lightning gathered with greater ferocity.
"Roar! Bastard!" Lei Shang bellowed as he resisted the lightning brimming with destructive power.
The sea of lightning roared, its electric flashes sharp as blades. Lei Shang swayed within the thunderbolts, barely able to remain standing. He gritted his teeth, a trace of resolve flashing through his eyes, and suddenly poured all his divine power into the luminous mist enveloping his body. The mysterious mist erupted with a dazzling radiance. It was an extraordinary artifact.
"Explode!" he growled. The artifact shattered instantly, its violent energy colliding with the lightning and raising towering waves of force. Both Lei Shang and Shi Yi were blasted away, blood spraying wildly from their mouths, their bodies mangled and bloody. But Lei Shang used that impact to hurl himself out of the sea of lightning with every ounce of his strength, tumbling onto a distant cliff.
The sea of lightning dispersed. Lei Shang lay on the ground, gazing at the gloomy sky, yet a faint smile curled at the corner of his mouth. Though he had lost his artifact and was wounded all over, he had escaped that deathtrap in the end. A path to survival could only be fought for, he reflected inwardly. "Old bastard, you look awfully relaxed. Die!"
Just as he was marveling at his good fortune in surviving the disaster, he heard Shi Yi charging toward him. Though gravely injured, he still gritted his teeth and met Shi Yi's punch with one of his own.
To anyone's astonishment, this time Shi Yi's punch sent Lei Shang flying into the mountainside. Lei Shang scrambled up and raced toward the mouth of the gorge.
"Where do you think you're going?" Shi Yi thundered.
Shi Yi was also covered in blood now. Parts of his body had split open, blood seeping from the cracks, but he still gave chase.