Chapter 634: Middle-Rank God
His twenty-foot-tall true form shot to its feet, blue and white electricity crackling over his knotted muscles.
A lightning-shaped Divine Pattern between his eyebrows blazed, piercing the barrier of his Divine Country and locking onto the alluring golden light in the ice valley.
"The Divine Formats of those Weak Gods from the West Field... shattered? A fine gift for me, indeed!"
Tatus let out a low laugh that sounded like rolling thunder.
A hundred thoughts raced through his mind, but in the end, greed overcame his doubts.
It was strange for a shattered Divine Format to fly thousands of miles and fall into the Northern Plains, but news of rampant god-hunting in the Wilderness West Field had long since spread.
He preferred to believe that some dying lesser god had detonated their Divine Format, and the fragments had just happened to be swept here by turbulent currents.
The aura of the Divine Format was spreading far and wide. If he didn’t hurry, someone else might get to it first.
The great gates of his Divine Country rumbled open.
The clouds roiled violently. A burly figure wreathed in thick arcs of lightning tore through the sky, smashing into the ice valley with the weight of a mountain.
The ground trembled, spiderweb-like cracks spreading out from beneath Tatus’s iron boots.
He bent to grab the Divine Format from the frozen earth, the lightning on his fingertips just inches away from the alluring crystal.
"The Sect Leader truly did not deceive me."
Xu Yunfan’s voice was like a cold wind sweeping across the ice, emerging from the shadow of a great boulder behind him.
"When your skull is filled with muscle, there’s no room left for even a shred of suspicion."
Xu Yunfan secretly breathed a sigh of relief. ’In the past, I also tended to solve things with brute force. But sometimes, a more indirect approach can use the smallest effort to leverage the greatest power.’
’This was a perfect example of the small overcoming the great.’
Tatus’s outstretched giant palm froze in place.
He turned slowly, his rock-carved face twisting in fury. His knotted muscles bulged, and Thunder Serpents danced wildly around him, ionizing the air and filling it with the acrid smell of ozone.
He glared down at Xu Yunfan, who stood less than two meters tall, his giant, bell-like eyes blazing with the fury of being defiled by an ant.
"Lowly mortal, you dare covet the possession of a god?!"
From within the banner, Delis quickly issued a warning.
"Your Eminence, this Tatus is a Middle-Rank God who has lived for nearly six thousand years!"
Xu Yunfan took a step forward. His Profound Daoist Robe remained perfectly still in the biting wind, and his gaze was as calm as if he were sizing up livestock for slaughter.
’Just Mid-Stage Foundation Establishment.’
"A god? You’re just a parasite feeding on Incense Fire Wish Power. Still, your brute strength makes you a bit more durable than those weaklings in the West Field."
A faint sneer touched the corner of his lips.
"Perfect. I’ll use you to test my strength."
Treated with such an attitude by a mere mortal, Tatus let out a furious roar like a thunderclap.
"You’re courting death!"
In an instant, Tatus threw a straightforward punch with his right fist.
Where the fist passed, the air compressed into a visible white shockwave. The raging blue-white lightning coalesced into a pillar as thick as a water cistern, instantly engulfing the spot where Xu Yunfan stood.
The ice cliffs collapsed amidst the lightning, the frozen ground vaporized, and a blinding light illuminated the entire valley as if it were day.
When the lightning dissipated, the spot where he had been was empty.
Tatus’s pupils contracted. A warning flared in his mind, and he instinctively recoiled.
𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢
A hand as fair as jade, trailing a dull sonic boom, grazed past the tip of his chiseled nose.
Xu Yunfan had appeared at his side at some unknown moment, moving so fast that he left only an afterimage.
"Too slow."
Xu Yunfan landed and flicked his wrist, as if brushing off dust.
He looked directly into Tatus’s huge eyes, now wide with astonishment, and casually tossed his Profound Daoist Robe onto the frozen ground. The action revealed a lean upper body, its smooth lines belying an explosive strength.
Beneath his skin, the Profound Vault Undying Combat Golden Body, forged by the Divine Sky Nine Heavens Profound Vault Undying True Scripture, pulsed with a faint glow.
"I’ll play along with you. It’ll be a good chance to get a concrete measure of my own strength."
Xu Yunfan rolled his neck, his vertebrae cracking like a string of firecrackers.
He pushed off, the frozen earth exploding beneath his feet as he shot into the sky like a cannonball.
In mid-air, he formed a Two-Handed Seal as deep True Words rumbled from his throat.
"Law of Heaven and Earth."
BOOM!
The very air seemed to have been struck by an invisible giant hammer, and it trembled violently.
Blinding violet-gold light erupted from every pore of Xu Yunfan’s body. The terrifying sound of his bones and sinews stretching was like a dragon’s roar.
When the light receded, a thirty-foot-tall, three-headed, six-armed Martial Arts Golden Body Dharma Aspect stood upon the ice.
The Dharma Aspect’s main head glared with furious eyes, a vertical pupil splitting open between its brows to shoot out a ray of Demon-Subduing Golden Light that pierced the void.
The left head’s eyes were closed in concentration, the Lin Character Dao Pattern flowing over it.
The right head chanted True Words, its voice like rolling thunder.
Its six arms were corded with muscles like coiling dragons and covered in violet-gold Thunder Armor. Wisps of destructive electric serpents slithered in the gaps between the plates.
A vast and majestic pressure, imbued with the Divine Sky Dao Rhyme, swept out in all directions like a tangible tsunami. It was so powerful that it forced the turbulent thunderclouds around Tatus back by dozens of feet.
It had been a long time since Xu Yunfan had used his Martial Arts Dharma Golden Body.
Ever since he had cultivated the Divine Sky Nine Heavens Profound Vault Undying True Scripture to the state of Perfection, his Martial Arts Dharma Golden Body had paled in comparison and rarely had a chance to be used.
Generally speaking, if he couldn’t blast an enemy to bits with his supremely violent Thunder True Skill Divine Techniques, or even if laying a Thunder Attribute Array to summon countless thunderbolts proved ineffective...
...then using the Martial Arts Dharma Golden Body for close-quarters combat would be tantamount to suicide.
Even the Profound Vault Undying Combat Golden Body, which he had forged using the Divine Sky Nine Heavens Profound Vault Undying True Scripture, was something Xu Yunfan had only cultivated to greatly enhance the strength of his Divine Soul and Dharma Body.
For the first time, a look of utter shock appeared on Tatus’s face.
The aura radiating from this mortal actually made his Divine Soul tremble—he, a Divine Spirit who commanded lightning.
The pressure emanating from the man was unlike the power of any known Pantheon in the Aitira Realm. Instead, it carried the domineering power of Blood Qi, a brutal force from within the body that simply crushed all Law.
"Mere tricks!"
His shock morphed into an even more violent rage. Tatus roared and smashed his fists together.
BOOM!
Behind him, an even larger phantom materialized—a giant spirit formed entirely of rampaging blue-white lightning, standing over a hundred feet tall.
The phantom moved in sync with Tatus’s true form. Four giant fists of lightning, wrapped in blinding Thunder Chains as thick as water barrels, tore through the air. They smashed viciously toward the thirty-foot Golden Body from four different angles, carrying enough force to crush mountains.
"Well met!"
The main head of Xu Yunfan’s Dharma Aspect let out a sky-shaking battle cry.
Its two front, golden-armored arms didn’t dodge or evade, instead forming the Purple Sky Thunder Seal to meet the attack head-on.
BOOOOM!!!
The two fists and four palms slammed into each other with a thunderous crash.
There was no flashy Spiritual Light from Magic, only the purest collision of raw power and lightning.
A visible, ring-shaped shockwave swept out, scraping away several feet of frozen earth for miles in every direction.
Blue-white lightning and violet-gold arcs of electricity frantically annihilated one another. The piercing explosions, mixed with the groan of space itself pushed beyond its limits, sounded like ten thousand giant bells ringing in one’s ears all at once.
Tatus grunted, and the giant lightning phantom behind him trembled violently, the light on one of its arms dimming noticeably.
His mind reeled. ’How can he use lightning too?’
’And his control is so exquisite! In comparison, my own methods for wielding lightning are unbearably crude.’
’He clashed head-on with the giant I manifested with my Divine Art and didn’t lose ground.’
Xu Yunfan no longer hesitated. The Dharma Aspect’s other four arms, however, had not been idle.