Northern winds carried the watchman's clapper; cold light shone upon iron armor.
The metal clapper sounded at night; the camp gates stayed shut by day.
The metal clapper, the metal clapper-at night, it was an instrument for marking the watches.
Time-Stopping Golden Shutter meant throwing the rhythm of those watches into chaos. Why would it fall into chaos? Naturally, only a disturbance in time would make the night watchman's clapper strike out of order.
That was Time-Stopping Golden Shutter, an extraordinary art capable of displacing time.
The only thing that could affect Time-Stopping Golden Shutter was its target's destiny-in other words, the weight they carried in the world. Generally speaking, the higher their cultivation or the stronger their fortune, the heavier their destiny, and the harder it was for Time-Stopping Golden Shutter to affect them.
Their existence disturbed the course of fate, indirectly anchoring the greater currents of the river of time, making them difficult for the time-disrupting Time-Stopping Golden Shutter to shake.
Moreover, Time-Stopping Golden Shutter had a fixed cooldown. Every time it released a target, time would rebound. For a short period afterward, spacetime would become extraordinarily heavy and impossible to move, preventing another suppression.
Chen Yao had no idea how horribly he would die if he tried suppressing Shi Hao with Time-Stopping Golden Shutter, nor how suddenly he might drop dead if he used it on that unscrupulous Immortal King. But judging by his attempt to suppress Shi Yi just now, neither was something he wanted to try.
He had only suppressed Shi Yi for an instant, yet he felt his essence, qi, and spirit rapidly draining away. The consumption was more than ten times what it had taken to suppress Aman at the Martial King Manor. With the Supreme Bone and double pupils united in one body, and considerable support behind him, Shi Yi could greatly influence parts of the Stone Kingdom's situation and even some of the world's broader trends. His weight was no small thing. At least for Chen Yao, his destiny was rather heavy. And it would only grow heavier in the future!
Although the drain was rapid, Chen Yao could accept it. After all, the suppression lasted only a brief instant, keeping the total consumption within tolerable limits.
First, he suppressed Shi Yi so that he could not react and dodge his strike. After releasing him, he suppressed himself instead, letting Shi Yi, shifted over by Eight Gates Transport, crash straight into the fist he had frozen for an instant with Time-Stopping Golden Shutter.
Once Time-Stopping Golden Shutter suppressed a target, fissures of displaced spacetime formed around them. The figure people saw was actually a projection from displaced spacetime; all that remained in the original position was an empty bubble. This bubble formed by spacetime fissures was exceptionally sturdy. Without a corresponding divine ability or sufficient cultivation, it was impossible to pierce.
So it was hard! Extremely hard! It even reflected damage.
That fist, wrapped in spacetime fissures, had cracked the Double-Pupil Creation Divine Armor outright. One more punch might shatter it.
All four of Shi Yi's pupils quaked. He retreated with the momentum, his left eye generating life and his right nurturing death. Yin and yang revolved, unfolding the mysteries of creation and annihilation. A beam of Two-Polarity Divine Light, black and white intertwined, gradually took shape. He intended to blast Chen Yao back with it and rally for another assault.
Because of Time-Stopping Golden Shutter's displacement, Chen Yao was almost half a beat slower, allowing Shi Yi's forehead to pull a little farther away, though it was still only a fist's distance from him. His striking fist opened, revealing two spiritual talismans within: one Immortal-Sealing Talisman and one Five Thunder Talisman.
Chen Yao surged forward, preventing Shi Yi from widening the gap. Just as Shi Yi finished gathering his divine light and was about to unleash it, Chen Yao suppressed him again with Time-Stopping Golden Shutter.
Shi Yi's response lagged another half beat.
Clear qi erupted from all five fingers. Qi-State Origin-Flow forcibly dissolved the threads of the Dao of life and death, interrupting the double pupils' Two-Polarity Divine Light and further dissolving the cracked divine armor. Meanwhile, the Immortal-Sealing Talisman halted the armor's restoration, dimming its divine power.
The Five Thunder Talisman was slapped down almost directly against the Immortal-Sealing Talisman. Terrifying, incandescent lightning exploded right against Shi Yi's head.
Boom!
To the onlookers, Shi Yi had charged too fast to dodge. He tried to retreat, but momentum kept him from stopping, and he took a punch and a palm strike square in the face. Suffering a heavy setback, he was sent flying in disarray by a single strike. The divine armor around his head shattered, and the lightning left his face blackened and filthy.
"Bastard!" Shi Yi roared. His double pupils blasted apart the Immortal-Sealing Talisman and forcibly dissolved the remnants of the Five Thunder Talisman. The shattered armor around his head, his disheveled hair, and the charred black patches across his forehead and part of his face proved that what had just happened was no illusion.
Whoosh! Just as Time-Stopping Golden Shutter was about to suppress him again, a beam of black-and-white divine light shot out, collapsing the Qimen Formation!
He had ultimately managed to unleash Two-Polarity Divine Light. It tore straight through the formation established by Feng Hou's Mystic Gate, preventing Time-Stopping Golden Shutter from being used.
Shi Yi had executed the technique both inside and outside his double pupils simultaneously. The external manifestation being dissolved had not stopped the divine light from forming within his eyes. That caution, born of combat experience, had helped immensely. It allowed him to release Two-Polarity Divine Light during the unavoidable fixed cooldown between two uses of Time-Stopping Golden Shutter, pierce the Qimen Formation, and completely end the threat of repeated suppression.
Using the Heavenly Eye of his double pupils, he had observed the subtle changes in the Qimen Formation. Over three consecutive suppressions, he had quickly deduced the existence of Time-Stopping Golden Shutter and confirmed its connection to the formation. At the same time, he had estimated the rough interval and broken the formation in one strike.
Impressive. He broke the formation in so little time. Was that combat intuition? Chen Yao's heart grew heavy.
He had originally wanted to see whether the bizarre, unique advantages of the Eight Extraordinary Skills could let him quickly cripple or outright kill Shi Yi. But Shi Yi's combat intuition and instincts were far too outstanding, and the strength of his body and hardness of his divine armor had far exceeded Chen Yao's expectations. He had actually inflicted only minor physical injuries.
"Such feeble attacks. Laughable! Had those been my precious techniques, that strike would have secured victory! What a waste of those marvelous precious techniques. Thank you-I will treat the arts I torture out of you well!" White light flowed over Shi Yi, rapidly healing the burns on his head and restoring his divine armor. Through the gaps in his visor, the gleam of his double pupils was extraordinarily cold, overflowing with killing intent.
"Oh? Really? Sounds like those eyes are wasted on you, then." Chen Yao raised his eyebrows, a malicious smile spreading across his delicate face. Shi Yi had gone mad and picked a fight with him for no reason. Showing him even the slightest kindness would have been asking for abuse.
"Hm?" Shi Yi's gaze grew unfocused. His pupils dilated slightly and trembled repeatedly, struggling to focus. Everything before him was a blur; he could make out nothing clearly. Beyond ten meters, he could not tell a person from an animal!
"Well, well. Are you farsighted now, or nearsighted?" Chen Yao asked with a smile, then abruptly attacked. Lightning surged as he lunged straight at Shi Yi.
The Five Thunders released by the Five Thunder Talisman contained both yin and yang, with the five elements nourishing one another. There was Crimson Palace Yang Thunder generated by metal and fire, as well as Water Viscera Yin Thunder generated by water and wood. Harmonized by earth, they united into the complete Five Thunders. Beneath the fierce Crimson Palace Yang Thunder, the power of Water Viscera Yin Thunder also seeped inward. This was the hidden secret of the Five Thunder Talisman that had struck earlier.
He had guided the Five Thunder Talisman to weaken its Crimson Palace Thunder and favor its Water Viscera Thunder, blasting his origin qi into Shi Yi's body along with it. Because the talisman's Five Thunders were complete, the Water Viscera Thunder blended entirely into the lightning, unlike yin thunder that had yet to reach the completion of the Five Thunders, which was far more conspicuous.
Water Viscera Thunder dissolved the soul and eroded the bones, slipping through every opening. In just a short while, it had already secretly penetrated deep into Shi Yi's body.
What would happen once his origin qi was blasted into someone's body? Naturally, that concerned the divine ability he had gained by transcending the extreme realm. The three corpses god had merged into his blood, qi, and divine radiance, and thus also into the origin qi born from his blood and qi. That earlier strike had already sent a heavenly demon into Shi Yi's body.
His command had been for Water Viscera Thunder to seep inside and distort the qi of liver wood, thereby affecting the body's related attributes. The eyes were the apertures of the liver. With the wood element thrown into chaos and the liver damaged, the eye apertures would naturally be implicated. Now, those double pupils... had weakened and blurred.
Shi Yi's double pupils were now farsighted, and their power was difficult to mobilize. With only the Supreme Bone and his other powers remaining, his combat strength plummeted.
What... technique is this?! Why can't I see through it at all? This isn't a spell! There was no process of rune transformation. It seems to be a pure divine ability of the Dao, power fed back directly by the Great Dao. My double pupils haven't reached the point where they can see through something like this! Shi Yi's thoughts raced. He spread his peng wings and retreated at tremendous speed, avoiding several successive blasts of palm lightning from Chen Yao.
His condition had deteriorated severely. With his double pupils weakened, he had lost most of his combat strength. He could not linger in battle!
"The double-pupiled one is retreating! Why? He clearly wasn't hurt much!"
"He seems to be trying to break free of something! His divine power is burning!"
Shi Yi retreated nearly a li, taking dozens of breaths to completely dissolve the power that had unknowingly rooted itself deep within him. Had he noticed it early, removing it would have taken only two or three breaths. Now, however, it had secretly rooted itself in his body without his knowledge and damaged his double pupils, making eradication and recovery more than ten times slower. Meanwhile, Chen Yao had long since vanished without a trace.
"Wu Gensheng!" Shi Yi's gaze was icy. This time, he truly intended to kill.
This was a formidable enemy! He could actually counter his double pupils like this! He could actually make them farsighted and weak!
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