"Not necessarily!" Qin Tian smiled easily. "Array formations are my domain!"
Ji Haiyue said nothing. He stepped forward and vanished before Qin Tian's eyes, merging into the void without leaving the slightest trace.
"Void Art!" Qin Tian's expression grew solemn. Azure radiance shone in his right eye as its innate divine ability activated, piercing the void and tracing the contours of space.
Qin Tian knitted his brows, watching his surroundings warily. "As expected of the Void Art. Even my innate spatial divine eye can only catch the faintest traces of his entry into the void. Once he merges into it completely, I can't detect him at all."
With a thought, his left eye lit up with silvery-white light, and time intertwined with space.
Future Sight laid out the various possibilities and locked onto the spot where Ji Haiyue would appear.
Once he had determined the answer, he looked again with his spatial eye and, sure enough, glimpsed a faint anomaly.
Rustle!
Just as expected, the Black Banner emerged from the void and slowly unfurled, blotting out the sky and sun as it pressed down on Qin Tian.
Boom!
The ground shattered in an instant, and the clouds were swept clean under that overwhelming pressure.
Qin Tian neither dodged nor retreated. A treasured sword appeared in his hand-a spirit-attuned treasure, and another piece from the Yaoguang Great Power's collection.
As for why he did not use the Phoenix-Winged Gilt Trident, it was because a Great Power's weapon was interwoven with Dao and principle. Activating it required far too much divine power. With Qin Tian's current cultivation, he could barely use it a few times. The gains would not outweigh the cost; this spirit-attuned treasure was a better choice.
He activated the divine sword, and at that moment, seven stars blazed in the heavens.
"Seven-Star Sword!" Qin Tian raised the divine sword high and shouted.
The seven stars in the heavens slowly lit up, gathering immense energy and plundering all the surrounding solar essence.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Streaks of starlight resembling divine swords lined the air. Each was several dozen feet long, with icy edges pointing toward the heavens, dazzling radiance, and killing intent soaring into the sky!
"Slash!" Qin Tian shouted, swinging his sword to command the stars.
Over a thousand streaks of sword light descended from the sky, their dazzling brilliance forcing eyes aside. Each was as thick as a bucket and incomparably sharp, charging forth like flood dragons. It was as though endless volcanoes were erupting, raining down stars that could shatter anything, seemingly capable of piercing the firmament!
"Hmph. You overestimate yourself, and you still dare resist!" Ji Haiyue waved the banner, taking command of the void. Though the banner was only about three meters long, it appeared before every streak of sword light simultaneously.
The banner snapped in the wind. Every shudder released cold of the utmost intensity, and each collision between the sword light and that cold unleashed vast surges of divine power.
Rumble!
The earth shattered once more, and almost in an instant, all thousand-plus streaks of sword light were crushed.
Under the impact of the shock waves, the earth seemed to turn into an ocean, layer upon layer of sand and soil surging like waves.
Within a radius of a thousand zhang, furious waves towered skyward. All the earth and stone were blasted loose, then swept up by the terrifying force and hurled into the sky.
"Is this the power of the Ji Family of Desolate Antiquity?" Qin Tian's expression grew grave.
With the banner in hand, Ji Haiyue shook it fiercely. Wind and thunder filled the sky, clouds formed and vanished, and even the earth trembled.
Then he slowly extended a hand. Before it, the void became a scroll upon which he could write at will, and the earth began to shake.
Boom!
The sky shuddered. A massive black hand manifested, surrounded by roiling black clouds and radiating an aura that made hearts tremble. It was none other than the Ji Family's Void Great Hand Seal.
Qin Tian's expression turned solemn. "Void Great Hand Seal!"
In the original novel, the Void Great Hand Seal might have seemed like nothing more than an ordinary killing move, unimpressive in power and breakable by just about anyone.
In truth, however, the words "a Great Emperor's killing move" alone placed it above techniques throughout the ages. Ninety-nine percent of the world's secret arts fell short of it, and another 0.99 percent could only stand alongside it.
Only the forbidden chapters of the Great Emperors and Ancient Emperors, along with the supreme divine arts left behind by Heavenly Emperors such as the Ruthless Emperor, Wushi, and the Emperor Sovereign, qualified to surpass the Void Great Hand Seal.
Hum!
The void trembled as the black hand descended, obscuring even the sun overhead and casting an enormous shadow over the ground below.
Crack! Crack!
Before the hand had truly struck, the ground beneath Qin Tian's feet could no longer withstand the pressure and rapidly split apart. One could only imagine the terrifying pressure bearing down on him.
Qin Tian hurriedly brought out the Mutton-Fat White Jade Hairpin, rapidly enlarging it and using it as a shield above his head.
Clang!
The piercing metallic vibration was so sharp that it made bodies shudder, like iron being forged, or metal and stone splitting the air.
Clang!
Another piercing vibration rang out. The Mutton-Fat White Jade Hairpin cracked, then shattered with a crash into countless pure-white fragments that danced through the air. Powerful force slammed into the earth, gouging deep pits across the ground.
The pitch-black hand struck down again with a deafening boom. The earth collapsed, surging like a vast ocean. Huge rocks and endless sand and soil were blasted over a thousand meters into the sky, painting a scene of the world's end.
In the brief moment bought by the Mutton-Fat White Jade Hairpin, Qin Tian had already escaped the Void Great Hand Seal's attack range.
His strength is no less than mine. Qin Tian stared at Ji Haiyue.
In their brief exchange, Qin Tian had gained no advantage at all. Instead, he had fallen onto the back foot.
In the early stages of cultivation, physique, scriptures, and cultivation realm were the three decisive factors determining a cultivator's combat strength.
Take the desolate ancient sacred body, for instance. No matter how inept or foolish its bearer was, its abundant origin and indestructible golden body alone were enough to crush ninety-nine percent of the world's cultivators.
Only upon reaching the Four Extremes and beyond did talent and comprehension truly begin to take center stage.
In the earlier realms, although one could comprehend the Dao in the Sea of Bitterness and Dao Palace, the power of the Great Dao one could wield was negligible before opening a secret realm that connected to the Great Dao of heaven and earth-unless one pursued the path of the unique secret realm.
Qin Tian, too, merely expressed the principles of the Great Dao through array formations, indirectly bringing its power to bear.
Below the Four Extremes, talent played a limited role. However well suited the art you created might be, could it compare to an emperor scripture?
The reasoning was simple: you could bring out one hundred percent of your own art's potential, but its power was only one hundred.
Yet even if you could bring out only twenty percent of an emperor scripture's potential, its power was still five hundred. There was no comparison.
Did you think you were fighting just one person?
Wrong!
You were fighting eighteen generations of his ancestors. Since the Void Emperor's time, over two hundred thousand years of accumulated foundations stood behind him, supporting him-a legacy passed down through a thousand generations.
It was the equivalent of one person pitting himself against a hundred thousand years of another family's accumulated foundations.
Although people in Qin Tian's previous life often mocked Ji Haoyue as the "Great Emperor of the Four Extremes," with a third-rate physique, second-rate talent, and utterly abysmal performance in the later stages.
In this world, however, he was called a Divine King.
The Divine King of the Eastern Wasteland, an outstanding figure among its hundreds of millions of young people, someone who truly stood at the pinnacle of the Eastern Wasteland's younger generation.
At least during this period, even the Yaoguang Holy Son could not possibly defeat him.
The Heaven-Swallowing Demon Art was also a cultivation art that came into its own in the later stages. The Yaoguang Holy Son was probably only at the Other Shore realm right now.
Against a divine king body, he would find victory difficult as well.
Of course, there were exceptions. The Ancient Great Emperors were precisely such people. No matter how many years of foundations you had accumulated, against someone like that, you could only be smashed to pieces.
The Feathered Divine Dynasty was an excellent example.
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