He had broken through. He Xian's physical body had reached the half-step Supreme level.
Immortal gold shone across his body, radiating a brilliance of unsurpassed splendor.
Whoosh!
His entire body blazed with light. The essence of heaven and earth surged toward him from every direction, and the imprints of the Great Dao became divine rivers interwoven through the void, replenishing the blood essence he had lost.
He Xian caught the bronze halberd with his bare hands.
"It's time to end all of this!"
"A bloody battle, a sublime transformation. Excellent. I am very pleased!"
"Beneath this starry sky, there is destined to be only one king-and that is me!" He Xian suddenly roared. His bearing declared that none but he could claim the crown, that throughout heaven and earth, he alone reigned supreme. It made others tremble.
Bang!
In a single instant, Hao Feng suffered hundreds upon thousands of heavy blows. He could barely hold on to his halberd. His body rang with explosive, metallic clangs as he was driven backward, his legs plowing furrows dozens of yards long across the battlefield.
"I am the only king!" Hao Feng roared as well. He swung his bronze halberd, unleashing a peerless halberd technique as he went berserk.
An earth-shaking showdown unfolded, and in an instant, the two exchanged another hundred moves.
This time, however, blood soon splashed into the air, illuminating He Xian's piercing gaze. His bare hands struck like a True Dragon extending its claws, every move carrying an unimaginably terrifying pressure.
Under such pressure, Hao Feng could no longer use his other secret arts. He devoted himself entirely to Ten Thousand Laws Cannot Invade.
This great art of his clan was profoundly obscure and difficult to understand. For the most part, a practitioner could cultivate only this one great art throughout their life.
Had it been easy, Wu Shang's lineage would have long since ruled the world.
Rumble!
Amid their exchange, the intricate assaults suddenly became simple.
"Ten Thousand Laws Cannot Invade may be invincible, but it is not without a weakness. Be destroyed!"
He Xian let out a long howl, his combat power soaring wildly. Silver-gold blood energy shot into the sky, and his eyes cast out flames like two divine lamps, dazzling and utterly intimidating against the heavens.
His spirit, energy, and essence climbed to their utmost limits. Blood energy surged from his body through the four seas and eight wildernesses, manifesting an enormous golden giant whose fist seals suppressed everything.
Kill! His fist intent was invincible, its supreme radiance illuminating heaven and earth. He merged with his manifestation and shattered the surrounding wilderness outright. Everything roared and seethed, unable to withstand him.
The heavens swayed, and the battlefield trembled. Waves of divine power swept through every corner, flooding everything.
Hao Feng met every change by remaining unchanged. With Ten Thousand Laws Cannot Invade protecting him, he was invincible. Less than a tenth of the power of any Dao art striking him remained, yet he could unleash attacks beyond the peak of his own strength. It was all but impossible to counter, all but invincible.
Both attacked with broad, sweeping movements, displaying the majestic bearing of those unrivaled beneath heaven. They intended to settle victory and defeat once and for all.
Bloodlight shone brilliantly as the Indestructible Scripture and Ten Thousand Laws Cannot Invade surged together, thundering through the nine heavens. Amid their clash, the sounds of ancient sacrificial rites seemed to echo faintly.
They fought to the death, settling everything within a few moves. The two figures collided, and terrifying vortices appeared around them one after another. Devouring, dissolving, disintegrating-every kind of dreadful force ran rampant, as though overturning rivers and seas.
Amid the flying blood and bone, He Xian's gaze grew ever more blazing. In the end, he had proved the more skillful!
He brought his palm down on his opponent's skull, blasting apart even the power of Ten Thousand Laws Cannot Invade, then tore half his body open. Hao Feng's tendons and bones snapped, his flesh dissolved, and his entire chest vanished, its flesh and bones reduced to drifting ash.
"Victory!" He Xian howled. He could no longer remember how many times he had roared at the heavens.
He gave full vent to his feelings. Without question, this had been the hardest battle he had ever experienced. Ten Thousand Laws Cannot Invade, universally acknowledged as the strongest great art in existence, truly defied heaven!
"Victory! Victory! Victory!" He had finally won.
A terrifying will that recognized neither law nor heaven, that held him alone supreme, could no longer be restrained.
He Xian threw back his head and roared again.
Hao Feng remained on his knees, dead, his halberd in his hand.
Tap, tap, tap.
Footsteps echoed through heaven and earth. Without a word, He Xian walked step by step to the center of the arena. Wounded from head to toe, he dripped silver-gray blood tinged with golden light. His countless injuries carried a heavy, murderous solemnity.
His oil had burned away, his lamp had guttered out. Without question, he had sacrificed both his soul and his blood essence.
He Xian was in a dreadful state. After several battles against opponents beyond his level, his body was covered in destructive scars, gravely wounded.
Yet his eyes were indescribably piercing, sharp as the might of heaven, cleaving through the world in every direction. They made others tremble and shrink from meeting his gaze.
Wherever he looked, even the lingering Great Daos of battle left by the fighting retreated.
Wherever he stepped, even those uncanny manifestations of gods and demons bowed in utter submission.
He was like an immortal sword tempered a thousand times, finally taking shape within a furnace like purgatory and shining with world-shaking brilliance.
"Where is my glory? Where are the cheers that shake the world?" He Xian roared, venting his dissatisfaction as he stood in the center of the arena.
Everything around him was far too quiet. It did not befit his title as the foremost figure of the Foreign Realm.
"Granted!" A supremely exalted voice rang out from the crown of the World Tree.
In an instant, countless stars throughout the Foreign Realm trembled. Entire vast universes began to quake. This unimaginable might shook heaven and earth, and the long river of time emerged with it.
A single utterance had brought forth such an incomprehensibly terrifying scene!
A king! A king! This was a king!
Even He Xian lowered his head slightly in respect. An Immortal King's gaze was upon him!
Then deafening cheers reached his ears. He saw the beings of the entire Foreign Realm cheering for him. He saw the hidden elders of the Crane Clan Ancestral Land awakening one after another, their faces filled with gratification.
He saw endless multitudes raising their arms and cheering for him. It was a peculiar perspective, as though he had been lifted to an infinitely high vantage point.
It turned out that ever since he had defeated the Gu Clan's great cultivator against the odds, the World Tree had projected every one of his arena battles onto the highest reaches of the sky, broadcasting them throughout the Foreign Realm.
His single-handed defeat of seven opponents! His crushing triumph over Wu Shang's lineage!
He Xian heard countless cheers and saw faces filled with admiration. The younger generation of the Foreign Realm regarded him as their idol.
Streams of inexplicable fortune blessed him. He seemed to have truly become heaven's favored child, a man of immense destiny.
The sort who encountered wondrous opportunities just by stepping outside, or found an old master after falling off a cliff!
It was off the charts!
Yet even more of that golden fortune flew toward the Crane Clan Ancestral Land.
He Xian could not absorb this oceanic tide of golden fortune.
The fortune of an entire realm blessed him.
He Wushuang's smooth ascent to the "King Realm" must also have owed something to this fortune of the Dao!
The boon he had gained when he became the foremost figure in his day!
"I bestow upon you the title, Sky-Supporting!"
He Xian's title had been bestowed: supporting the sky with one hand. Like his father's former title, Unmatched Under Heaven, the proclamation of the Dao spread throughout the entire great realm.
"Sky-Supporting! Sky-Supporting! Supporting the sky with one hand!" The entire Foreign Realm cried out.
Two golden characters were inscribed between He Xian's brows. They carried an unimaginable aura that spanned past and present, overshadowing the sun and moon, as though they might unleash incomparable power.
Yet they gradually settled into stillness, becoming ordinary.
He Xian touched the space between his brows. He felt that he could now command the myriad Daos throughout the heavens of the Foreign Realm, its laws one by one. Was this a kind of authority?