Chapter 439: Insight
Aboard the Light Divine Race's warship stood four figures who wore somber expressions, braced as if about to face a mortal enemy.
Behind them, more than a dozen Void-Refining and Void-Piercing members of the divine race stood in silence, watching the four ahead with a trace of awe. They knew exactly what these four were worth. Every one of them stood at the very pinnacle of the Light Divine Race.
And yet, for all their confidence in their divine sovereigns, their expressions were extremely solemn. Because they knew precisely which powerhouse they were about to face.
"Lyra, this Yaoguang was just ranked tenth on the Dao Lord Candidate Rankings... and with this cache fully exposed now, I say that to be safe, we should work with the other divine races, especially the Destruction Divine Race, and develop this secret realm together. That's the only way to be absolutely sure," one divine sovereign said gravely.
"Whether or not we end up developing this cache jointly with the other divine races, today we still make this Yaoguang pay for blood with blood! Otherwise, did Qiming and the others die for nothing?" replied the divine sovereign called Lyra, his tone equally heavy. "I know. This Heavenly Dao Sect's deputy sect master single-handedly brought the Yin Lunar Sect to its knees and killed seven of its great fiendish cultivators one after another. That strength is enough to instill fear in our hearts.
"But we've learned the details over the years. Those seven Void-Shattering fiendish cultivators were killed on several separate occasions, and the reason all seven fell to him is that his life-bound Dao Technique, Void Flicker, is absolutely formidable.
"But Void Flicker, at best, guarantees him total advantage in a pursuit. Against an opponent he can't defeat, what use is that life-bound Dao Technique, other than saving his own skin?"
With that, he glanced at the unhurried figure standing to one side. "Besides, this time Yinghuo himself has come. He left the stellar core specifically to counter Jinghong, and then Jinghong crawled back into the stellar core and hid, too afraid to show himself. So, instead, the Heavenly Dao Sect's finest deputy sect master in history will serve as the offering for his blade... That way, Divine Lord Yinghuo's trip won't be wasted."[1]
"I heard a report that this Yaoguang crossed hands with Jinghong and they were equally matched. That's exactly why the latest Dao Lord Candidate Rankings placed him tenth. Below Jinghong, but basically at the same level," said the divine sovereign who had spoken first.
Another divine sovereign apparently couldn't listen any longer, and said with a laugh, "Huiguang, I think Yaoguang's assault against the Yin Lunar Sect has spooked you. Relax. Never mind that Yaoguang ranks below Jinghong. Even if Perfected Lord Jinghong himself showed up, he'd have no advantage against Lyra and Yinghuo together, and with the two of us backing them up, nothing can possibly go wrong."[2]
"We can't afford the slightest carelessness. The unfortunate deaths of Qiming and the other two divine sovereigns should be a warning to us," Divine Sovereign Huiguang said.
"Qiming and the others... they underestimated their enemy," Divine Sovereign Lyra judged fairly. "They'd been out in the deep starry sky all these years, and their information on Yaoguang stopped at the period when he needed an array to slay the Eight Desolations and Dark Fiend Lords. So when they moved against him, they actually split their forces. Qiming was busy breaking the array and never lifted a hand, leaving only Suoka and one other to deal with him. With such a strategy, the results could hardly have been different than a crushing defeat."
He paused. "And besides, how could Qiming's and Suoka's strength ever compare with mine and Yinghuo's?"
Divine Sovereign Huiguang was about to say something more when Divine Sovereign Yinghuo, the one who bore the title of "Divine Lord," finally spoke, "No matter what, Yaoguang killed three divine sovereigns of the Light Divine Race. That is a fact. Whether or not we later join hands with the other divine races to develop this cache, today's battle must be fought. That is the only way to keep the other races from looking down on us! If we lost three divine sovereigns and still sat motionless, cowed by Yaoguang's fearsome reputation, then from this day on the Light Divine Race would become the laughingstock of the North Sea Star."
Another divine sovereign nodded. Often enough, these things could not simply be waved away because they preferred not to fight. The arrow was on the string and, swept along by the circumstances, they had no choice but to release it.
Hearing Divine Lord Yinghuo put it in those terms, Divine Sovereign Huiguang sighed and argued no further. "Then we fight. One all-out gamble. Close in on the target and immediately strike with everything!"
"As we should."
"We may have the numbers, but against a powerhouse ranked tenth on the Dao Lord Candidate Rankings, no amount of caution is excessive."
The other divine sovereign and Divine Sovereign Lyra nodded together. Then Lyra turned his gaze to Divine Sovereign Yinghuo. "Divine Lord, just in case... the True God Quintessence..."
"I know." Divine Sovereign Yinghuo produced a measure of True God Quintessence, dense with potent Dao resonance.
With the Dao Lord's cache already near, he swallowed it without hesitation. At once, brilliant light coursed over his entire body, countless threads of Dao resonance streaming off him, as if he had struck up some uncanny resonance with the Great Dao of light itself.
"This power..." Divine Sovereign Yinghuo clenched a fist, exhilaration and hunger in his expression. "Right now, I am stronger than I have ever been. One on one, I could beat any of the top ten on the Dao Lord Candidate Rankings!"
A ripple flashed through the void, and a figure appeared before the warship in an instant. It was Yaoguang.
He regarded the divine sovereigns with a faint smile. "You've all come just in time!"
Before Yaoguang could finish, blinding radiance burst from Divine Sovereign Yinghuo's entire body. Under the influence of some mysterious law, the energy over every inch of him condensed with impossible speed, becoming in an instant a shaft of rainbow light that pierced heaven and earth.
"Now die!"
"Hmm?" Yaoguang disappeared with a single Void Flicker, simply evading the enormous rainbow light.
Since his comprehension had climbed from the Void-Shattering Realm to Dao Integration, his understanding of the void had risen to an entirely new height. If not for his lingering wariness about the problem of Dao transformation and his wish to determine whether there was another way around it, he could have attempted Dao Integration already.
With a foundation like that, using Void Flicker was now completely effortless.
"Seal him in! Don't let him run loose!" Divine Sovereign Yinghuo bellowed at the sight of Yaoguang dodging.
A ring-shaped high-grade Dao Artifact appeared above his head, ceaselessly resonating with the Great Dao of light. Its power made it so that the rainbow beams he fired were not merely fast, but also terrifyingly powerful, in no way inferior to Zhen Xuanyuan's Great Void Disintegration Technique.
And compared to Zhen Xuanyuan's technique, this divine sovereign's rainbow-colored light was even faster.
The others needed no reminder from him. Lyra, Huiguang, and the fourth divine sovereign had already struck at once. Divine Sovereign Lyra, as it turned out, cultivated the Dao of psyche, and he used peculiar means to try to shake Yaoguang's mind and erode his will to resist.
Of the other two, one used a Dao Technique that bound the maximum speed of that stretch of starry sky to the speed of light, while the other brought out void-suppressing methods to clash with Yaoguang directly.
Unfortunately for them, interference at this level meant nothing to the current Yaoguang. He didn't even bring out the Heaven-Sealing Stele.
Resisting Divine Sovereign Lyra's psyche attacks with the True Spirit Light, he simply kept using Void Flicker, evading Divine Sovereign Yinghuo again and again.
And all the while he dodged the divine sovereign's attacks with his life-bound Dao Technique, he was rapidly digesting the newly arrived experience of the Dao Integration Realm, striding ever faster toward the true understanding of a Dao Lord.
Soon he seemed wholly immersed in that singular insight, his grasp of the Great Dao of void and his command of void Dao Techniques climbing by the moment.
To Divine Sovereigns Yinghuo, Lyra, and the others, however, the sight was a shot of pure encouragement.
"He has no chance to strike back at all! All he can do is dodge with his life-bound Dao Technique!"
"As expected of Divine Lord Yinghuo! This Crimson Flame Streaming Light would send immortals and buddhas themselves into retreat!"
"Defend for too long, and you're bound to show an opening. Victory will be ours in the end!"
The four divine sovereigns each stuck to their role, using their Dao Artifacts one after another. Interference, binding, suppression, attack... Dao Techniques poured out in a frenzy, as if they could use them indefinitely.
And because Yaoguang seemed to slip past every single attack by only a hair's breadth, they grew ever more convinced that one more push would be enough to cripple him, even kill him, and bring down the Heavenly Dao Sect's new star. So their techniques came faster and faster, truly holding back nothing.
But sustaining what amounted to a flood of Dao Techniques exacted an equally enormous toll.
Yaoguang could use the Torrent of Time to release multiple techniques in one breath, as many as five or six, because he had practiced the Sovereign Human Emperor, a Dao Technique derived from the Great Dao of origin.
And since his battles ended quickly, never dragging on, the problem of running out of energy simply never arose.
These divine sovereigns, though... Far from the earthly divine kingdom, their foundations were already diminished, and pouring out Dao Techniques in an endless stream on top of that... Within mere dozens of rounds, they felt the strain.
Dozens of rounds more, and the two weaker ones, Divine Sovereign Huiguang among them, felt their divine kingdoms shuddering, on the verge of giving out.
"Something's wrong! H-He wants to bleed us dry!" Divine Sovereign Huiguang burst out.
Lyra and Yinghuo had already seen the problem. But whether or not their opponent was using Void Flicker to drain them, the fact was that even attacking in an all-out frenzy, they had failed to touch a Yaoguang who was doing nothing but dodging.
That meant the gap between the two sides was wide enough to see with the naked eye!
"Perfected Lord Jinghong could never manage this!"
"It's come to this. Use the forbidden techniques! Whatever it takes, we must deal with him here and now!"
The two divine sovereigns spoke as one.
Divine Sovereign Yinghuo, above all, with the True God Quintessence refined into him, invoked some special forbidden technique. His divine kingdom seemed to flood with limitless light that accelerated to its absolute limit until it outran time itself and linked with the laws of time, increasing the speed of his Dao Techniques by fifty percent!
The violent quaking of that divine kingdom finally startled Yaoguang out of his immersion in the Great Dao of void. Seeing them release forbidden techniques in a blaze and give everything they had, Yaoguang was mildly surprised.
Then he gave them his approval. "Very good. That's the spirit."
Even as he spoke, he swept his hand; the Torrent of Time surged, and two Void Swords came slashing out.
1. Yinghuo (荧惑) can mean two things: 1. How ancient Chinese refer to Mars. 2. Deceive/Deception/Deceit. This term is transliterated and this note is left to show the symbolism of this term. ☜
2. Huiguang is also the name of a famous Shaolin monk in ancient China. It can also mean "wisdom light." This term is left transliterated for the same reason as mentioned above. ☜