Shi Yi drove only the divine radiance and bone text within his body, striking with his fleshly divine strength.
He was openly inviting Chen Yao to a contest of physical strength.
Chen Yao had no fear whatsoever and struck back in kind.
He had used Twin Hands as the foundation for his transcendence beyond the extreme realm of the Blood Moving Realm. As an ability that cultivated both body and soul, it already tempered his flesh continuously. Coupled with the Heavenly Demon Tribulation derived from the Three Corpses God, the more symptoms of external demons he mastered, the more flaws he discovered in his body, leaving ever fewer weaknesses and shortcomings in the flesh tempered by heavenly demons.
The process of collecting heavenly demon seeds was also the process of his continual growth in strength.
The stronger the heavenly demons, the stronger his blood and vital essence, and the stronger his body!
Shi Yi's physical strength relied on the enhancements of golden body liquid and supreme blood. Judging from the original story, he had not transcended the extreme realm. His cultivation focused primarily on cave heavens and double pupils.
There was no suspense. Shi Yi retreated several steps, his right hand spasming, blood flowing over its surface. He was already injured.
"So you really weren't using your full strength with that palm strike back then." Shi Yi reached the wrong conclusion.
Thanks for the compliment. The quip flashed through Chen Yao's mind. He was no Innate Supreme; he had only caught up recently.
"There's no need to pit our precious techniques against each other. I asked a senior, and she said your divine ability should involve control over some primordial energy of heaven and earth, such as chaos qi, the light of Yuan Chu, primordial chaos qi, and so on. That would give it properties like Unaffected by All Laws, untouched by all laws, or dissolving all laws. All precious techniques would be useless. I presume that is your innate supreme art." Shi Yi stared at Chen Yao as he spoke.
"I saw you use that move when we first met. Back then, you shouldn't have reached the pinnacle of cave heavens or cultivated your own Dao fruit yet. It could only have been a supreme art."
Should I call that reasoning right or wrong?
The process was wrong, but the answer seemed right.
"I will use the supreme profundity of my double pupils. One move will decide the outcome. Give my regards to the seniors of the Stone Kingdom Ancestral Land." Shi Yi finally revealed something of his purpose. He had designs on the Stone Kingdom Ancestral Land.
"Do you honestly think your maneuvering back then and the things you've said these past few years can fool anyone?" Chen Yao almost laughed in anger. This fellow really had no shame at all. "You think the Stone Kingdom Ancestral Land would welcome you?"
"I believe the elders of the Ancestral Land will understand my thinking. If they don't, then our paths differ, and I won't force the matter." Shi Yi's expression remained unruffled, his double pupils growing steadily deeper.
White light flowed through his left eye, nurturing creation and vitality: true yang. Darkness lay deep within his right eye, radiating extinction and death: true yin. Yin and yang became one, returning to wuji, returning to chaos, to the beginning of heaven and earth.
Two cave heavens appeared within his eyes, nurturing world-opening light that would cleave chaos and open heaven and earth anew.
One cave heaven was yin, the other yang. Though they stood at opposite poles, they were truly one, and their world-opening light gave birth to World-Opening Dao Weapons.
The Chaos Divine Spear, the Chaos Divine Sword, the World-Opening Divine Axe... all manner of Dao weapons intertwined, finally returning to their primordial state: that ray of world-opening light within the aura of chaos, seeming both a single point and a radiance illuminating all six directions.
"Even the most primordial power has its limits. To counter the primordial with the primordial, chaos world-opening power is the best choice. It is not some secondary power born after the opening of heaven and earth, so it cannot be reduced any further. An attack unleashed with it will render even your primordial power that dissolves all laws ineffective. It cannot be dissolved!" Shi Yi was actually explaining all this quite at ease.
"Did the one inside the Ancient Sacred Academy teach you that?" Chen Yao was equally untroubled, setting his Qi-State Origin-Flow, now transformed into a divine ability, into motion.
"Do you think that as long as you find a way to display your talent and brilliance, every grievance can be whittled down to nothing? That nobody can refuse the goodwill of a future genius who takes the initiative to befriend them? Who taught you that, the Martial King Manor? Or did you figure it out all on your own?"
Qi-State Origin-Flow broke down the profundities of precious techniques again and again, moving from complexity to simplicity, then evolved them again and again, moving from simplicity to complexity. The five elements order cycled endlessly, and a small world appeared in his palm, its chaos still undifferentiated, on the verge of opening.
Shhk!
The World-Opening Divine Light of his double pupils cleaved through space, piercing everything in its path. The arena, which had remained undamaged in the absence of any fierce fighting, was actually pierced through, broad stretches of railing and floor exploding into fragments.
Illusory images appeared all around: scenes of heaven and earth being opened, and scenes of heaven and earth being destroyed. A divine figure emerged, holding a great halberd born from its eyes, cleaving chaos and then heaven and earth, enacting the birth and death of worlds.
The raging divine light gathered, its power concentrating into a single point and transforming into a Chaos Long Sword. Incomparably sharp, it consisted only of hilt and blade, naturally formed as one seamless whole, wreathed in chaos qi, able to shatter anything and endure countless tribulations without wearing away.
Chen Yao continuously evolved the Phoenix Precious Technique, the five qi within his chest returning to the origin. Just as primordial qi gave rise to five qi, gathering true qi to evolve the Five Thunder Orthodox Method, he once again used his utterly transformed body after cave heaven transcendence to align with the profundities of the five elements, allowing the supreme profundity of the Phoenix Precious Technique to unleash even greater power.
So long as one was strong, one's Dao foundation complete and flawless, and one's cultivation beyond the extreme realm, a sufficiently powerful method suited to oneself was enough to sweep aside everything.
So-called Innate Supremes merely had their foundations enhanced by supreme blood and a Supreme Bone, while their supreme arts displayed their might. If one's foundation and Dao fruit were no weaker than the opponent's, and one's techniques were likewise no weaker, why couldn't one match them?
The fact that the Kunpeng Method had broken every double-pupil technique Shi Yi possessed apart from its supreme profundity was enough to explain a great deal.
The five elements world transformed into a spherical jewel, five colors flowing across it. It resembled an entire world, so immensely heavy that it seemed about to crush space itself.
The World-Opening Divine Light struck the jewel squarely, instantly cleaving that world apart in an explosion and reopening heaven and earth. Yet none of this could spread outward. The power within was locked firmly inside that small world. The world was born and destroyed repeatedly, opened again and again, but the World-Opening Divine Light remained trapped inside, unable to escape.
Even when Shi Yi increased his power further, only a little world-opening chaos qi spilled out. He still failed to break through Chen Yao's defense.
The Ten Fiends method evolved to its utmost by Qi-State Origin-Flow wielded overwhelming dominance, completely withstanding Shi Yi's strongest strike.
This battle was neither fierce nor a fight to the death. From beginning to end, they exchanged only two moves.
"The power of the five elements... what method is this? The Five Elements Peacock's method? Impossible. It's too strong." Shi Yi exhaled a long breath, seemingly having expended considerable strength. Blood vessels had also begun to show in his double pupils.
He did not seem surprised by this. Instead, he seemed somewhat pleased.
"What business is that of yours? Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you?"
"The Stone Kingdom Ancestral Land could nurture you, so I can rise further there as well. The grievances of years past are insignificant when viewed over a longer span of time. I've also said that I don't care about returning the Supreme Bone. With the say I had back then, I couldn't stop my elders from acting. That is indisputable," Shi Yi said calmly.
"..." Chen Yao admitted that he had underestimated the thickness of Shi Yi's skin.
"You may not know this, but a great calamity is approaching. I already understand the truth behind it and have confirmed it through multiple sources. Some factions have already contacted me, intending to recruit me. I can serve as a bridge and keep the Ancestral Land's deities from falling during the calamity. The heritage of the Stone Kingdom Ancestral Land is sensitive, and it will be difficult for it to survive. Perhaps the elders of your Ancestral Land understand this more clearly. Relay my words to them, and they will naturally understand," Shi Yi said mildly.
"..." Chen Yao suddenly did not know whether to laugh or cry. Shi Yi seemed to be offering them a way to back down. As long as they accepted his account and wiped the slate clean, he could lead the Ancestral Land through the coming calamity from the Upper Realm. He wanted to obtain the Ancestral Land's secret teachings through this.
But Chen Yao knew far more than he did, and the whole affair suddenly became rather comical.
"Shi Yi, let me ask you something. They say those with double pupils are born precocious. When you painstakingly schemed for the Supreme Bone back then, was it because you were truly greedy? Or was it because everyone around you was like that, and you were afraid of not fitting in, so you put on a performance to win your mother's praise and show her you'd grown up?" Chen Yao looked at Shi Yi with amusement.
Shi Yi froze. He had never expected such a reply, and his expression gradually darkened.
"Unfortunately, however precocious you were, you were still a child. You couldn't see the situation clearly, nor did you understand that you couldn't protect your mother on your own. Now that things have come to this, your mother's death has become a sunk cost. If you can't prove you were right back then, then she died for nothing."
"Little brats never understand how precious their mothers are. Only after losing them do they learn regret."
"You'd better wash your neck and get ready. Fight Xiao Man and Shi Hao. Win even one match, and we won't ask for the Supreme Bone back."
With that, Chen Yao ignored Shi Yi, whose fury had laid his killing intent bare, and walked straight off the dueling platform, leaving the Void God Realm.
(I've always felt that however precocious someone with double pupils might be, he was still a child, and the environment he grew up in mattered enormously. With that branch of the Martial King Manor and his mother teaching him through word and deed like that, only a scoundrel could emerge. Even if he figured things out, he could only keep being a scoundrel, because his mother was dead. Judging by the situation, he cared deeply about her. Sunk cost: if he didn't keep going, she would have died for nothing.)
(After thinking about Shi Yi's battle, I decided to get through it quickly. The current Shi Yi and the later Immortal King Shi Yi simply cannot be mentioned in the same breath. In his battle with Shi Hao in the original story, without healing and the Heaven-Mending Art, things would inevitably have looked ugly. Trading wound for wound, only to finish with injuries on par with Shi Hao's, really made it hard to keep a straight face. Against Aman and Shi Hao as strengthened in fanfiction, with at least three or four Immortal King methods and several transcendences beyond the extreme realm, he has no advantage whatsoever.)
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