Chapter 441 - 425: "His Weakness Must Be Spiritual Power!
The Tower King felt his target vanish in an instant, and an intense sense of danger flared up behind him.
As a General-rank Nirvana Powerhouse who had been renowned for countless years, his combat instincts were off the charts. The right arm holding the Thirty-Three-Layered Small Tower glowed, and a massive Shield of Defense materialized, sealing off his back completely.
BOOM!
The devastating blow smashed fiercely onto the Crystal Shield.
The Thirty-Three-Layered Small Tower spun at an incredible speed, absorbing energy from the entire Unfastened Boat Star Realm and stacking all its defensive buffs onto the Tower King alone.
The supreme treasure was immensely powerful.
But there was no time.
A torrent of magma surged forth. Empowered by Shi Ming’s Attack Power of over 3600, the hastily condensed shield couldn’t withstand the impact. With a CRACK, a fissure appeared.
The fissure spread rapidly like a spiderweb.
WHOOSH—
The Heart of the Star Spirit, held in one of the Tower King’s right arms, shone for the first time.
This supreme treasure had finally been used in battle.
A massive amount of starlight poured from the cracked shield. It patched up the fissures, and in less than a moment, the shield was as good as new. It even gained an additional thick, dense layer of starlight, making the shield on the Tower King’s back look even more solid.
’Truly miraculous and intelligent.’
His first strike having failed, Shi Ming retreated explosively.
’Actually, I could have used a combination of the Retrospection Rune and a pause rune to land a solid backstab on the Tower King. But it’s clear that even if I did massive damage, he would have other tricks up his sleeve, thanks to the Heart of the Star Spirit.’
’Forcing him to use a Space Rune and drawing out the Heart of the Star Spirit’s first intervention is a decent outcome.’
Shi Ming needed to force out all of the Tower King’s trump cards.
Only then could his opponent serve his purpose as a whetstone to the fullest.
...
In the Star Sea, fire and water stood in opposition.
The Tower King, like a Town Territory Bright King, was wreathed in interwoven chains and suffused with an aquatic light. The shield on his back was unimaginably solid, his long spear as imposing as a star.
The three-headed, six-armed Shi Ming held only a single Magma Greatsword, his aura violent and scorching, radiating a brutal, destructive energy like that of a ferocious beast.
BOOM!
Sorrow and Cage clashed violently once more.
Amidst the rifts of energy, Shi Ming and the Tower King clashed, their starkly different weapons ringing out.
"Kid, your strength is certainly impressive."
"But this is as far as you go."
After their exchange, both Shi Ming and the Tower King felt they had a measure of their opponent. The Tower King certainly didn’t believe Shi Ming’s claim of having "wandered the stars for several thousand years." Relying on his own judgment and experience, he knew for a fact this opponent couldn’t be more than three hundred years old. To him, Shi Ming was just a wet-behind-the-ears brat!
’A hothead like this might be physically strong, but he’s bound to have a glaring weakness.’
’Spiritual Power!’
’Aside from racial differences, Spiritual Power can only be accumulated with age. And when it came to age, the Tower King had an overwhelming advantage, having lived many times longer.’
In the heat of battle, he closed his eyes.
Starlight and iron chains wove around him, briefly rendering him seemingly invincible.
No matter how little high-level combat experience Shi Ming had, he knew what this meant. ’He’s preparing an ultimate move.’ A Nirvana-rank powerhouse could possess at most two Nirvana-rank skills. The Tower King was likely about to unleash his second one.
Shi Ming zipped through space at extreme speed, ready to activate the Retrospection Rune and the Immortal Sanctuary at a moment’s notice.
The chains unfurled, layer by layer.
Like a silkworm emerging from its cocoon, the Tower King reappeared with his eyes still closed. His previous dark, prison-like aesthetic was gone, replaced by a sacred aura.
At the same time, the Heart of the Star Spirit in his hand actively lit up for a second time.
The Nirvana skill of the Star Spirit Race: [Preemption]!
The Tower King’s Nirvana skill: [Heart Erosion]!
A perfect combination.
[Preemption] was a powerful crowd-control skill. It forcibly interrupted all skills the target was currently using or about to use within the next second, putting them on a 24-hour cooldown.
This was the moment the supreme treasure, the Heart of the Star Spirit, deemed most opportune!
It was the perfect setup for the Tower King’s [Heart Erosion]!
[Heart Erosion] was a spiritual attack. It unleashed the Tower King’s full Spiritual Power to suppress and rapidly corrode the target’s mind. It was a simple contest of power—as long as the Tower King’s Spiritual Power was greater, the target would be utterly consumed by the skill’s effects, leaving behind nothing but an empty shell.
Shi Ming, who had been moving at high speed through the Star Sea, found his Nine-Headed Sanctuary suddenly dispelled. His three-headed, six-armed form vanished instantly.
The Nine-Headed Sanctuary was now on a 24-hour cooldown.
His Ten Thousand Forms Sanctuary and Four-Dimensional Sanctuary, however, were unaffected. One had already altered his "form" on a fundamental level, while the other was preserved as a Rune. Neither was considered a currently active skill, so they couldn’t be forcibly terminated.
Almost simultaneously, Shi Ming felt the Tower King’s immense Spiritual Power trying to invade his Sea of Spirit. The [Heart Erosion] skill was one of the Tower King’s most powerful trump cards, yet now it was like an ant lost in a maze, able to do nothing but circle helplessly around the outer edges of his Sea of Spirit.
It was completely useless.
With the protection of the Hundred-Floor Celestial Tower and his own incredibly high Spiritual Power defenses, Shi Ming couldn’t possibly lose a simple contest of power. Heart Erosion felt as if the Tower King had exhausted all his Spiritual Power just to skip a stone that sank without a trace.
The Tower King stumbled back a few steps,
his face ashen.
He couldn’t imagine what other trump cards this kid was holding to have completely nullified his other Nirvana skill, [Heart Erosion]. Meanwhile, his [Cage] and the boy’s [Sorrow] were neutralizing each other, preventing either from being fully effective.
Reverted to his one-headed, two-armed form, Shi Ming stepped onto the void, a cross-shaped blade of light shooting from his palm.
"Sorrow!"
The Tower King, snapping back from his shock and frustration, prepared to summon the Ten Thousand Vault Radiance. But at that exact moment, Shi Ming activated the Time Rune in the palm of his right hand—the one that could stop time for one second.
CLICK.
Time stopped.
Time froze the instant before the Tower King could raise his defenses.
But Sorrow, the skill Shi Ming had unleashed, was unaffected by the time stop. The cross of light slammed viciously into the Tower King’s hardened body.
DING.
The time stop ended. A defensive shield rose around the Tower King, but his body was already being carved apart by Sorrow, nearly splitting him into four pieces!
The excruciating pain made the General-rank Nirvana Powerhouse grit his teeth until they nearly shattered.
For a moment, a thousand thoughts raced through his mind.
Just as he was considering swallowing his pride and calling for aid from the Sovereign of the Thirty-Seventh Cosmic Country, the supreme treasure, the Heart of the Star Spirit, shone one last time, offering its final assistance.
It was a light he had never seen before!
A skill that was foreign even to its master.
Howling starlight enveloped the Tower King, instantly healing every wound on his body. The excess energy then condensed into a singularity and erupted with the brilliance of a supernova. The entire Star Domain within Shi Ming’s view turned into a stark, uniform, ghastly white.
That ghastly white enveloped Shi Ming as well.
If he didn’t deal with it properly, it would melt through his defenses in less than three seconds.
Just as Shi Ming was about to play another one of his trump cards, the Lamp of Wishes flashed out of his Storage Bracelet on its own.
A faint, pale yellow light flickered to life.
It was as if a small, pale yellow space had been propped up within the ghastly white world.
All the ghastly whiteness actually detoured around it, protectively avoiding the small, ten-cubic-meter space sustained by the lamp, as a mother would her calf. The two lights, both tangible, flowed around each other like the white of an egg cradling its yolk...