Chapter 387 - 311: Thousand Feet Dharma Aspect: Crushing
The battle erupted in an instant.
The Corrupt Monarch’s thirteen Tentacles struck out at once!
Each one was hundreds of feet long.
The eyes at their tips continuously expanded and contracted as they lunged, as if breathing.
The surfaces of the Tentacles glowed with different lights—some purplish-black, some dark red, some a sickly green.
They were the auras of thirteen different Rules!
Erosion, Devouring, Chaos, Curse, Fear, Despair, Pestilence...
The thirteen Rules intertwined, forming a web from which there was no escape!
An ordinary practitioner at the Initial Stage of True Form would be infected by the Erosion of all thirteen Rules if struck by even a single tentacle.
At best, they would be grievously wounded; at worst, they would be corrupted on the spot.
’So many Rules... Can you even handle them all?’
Li Xing sneered inwardly, showing no intention of dodging.
He unleashed his Gravity Orbit at full Power!
Three hundred feet in diameter!
The thirteen Tentacles plunged directly into the Gravity Field.
The Power of Rules was just about to erupt, but in the next instant...
They began to deflect. This was no simple change in direction.
Instead, the very geometry of the space they occupied was being forcibly rewritten.
Their trajectories, which were originally aimed straight at Li Xing, were stretched, twisted, and bent within the Gravity Field until, finally...
They all pointed in the same direction.
BOOM!!!
The thirteen Tentacles slammed into one another!
The resulting explosion from the clash of thirteen Rules blew the palace dome clean off!
Countless fragments of flesh and blood rained down from above, only to be vaporized by the Purification Starlight before they could even hit the ground.
"What?"
For the first time, a look of shock appeared on the Corrupt Monarch’s enormous face.
Its two-hundred-foot body shot backward, knocking over its throne.
The thirteen Tentacles thrashed wildly, but with every swing, the Gravity Field forcibly pulled them back to their original positions.
"You... This is impossible!"
It roared, its voice tinged with panic for the first time.
Li Xing gave it no chance to speak.
He raised his right hand and tapped his index finger lightly.
The Purification Orbit suddenly contracted, condensing into an extremely concentrated, thumb-thick beam of silver light!
The beam shot straight for the space between the Corrupt Monarch’s brows!
’Not good!’
A jolt of terror shot through the Corrupt Monarch, and it violently jerked its head aside.
The beam grazed the side of its forehead, leaving a scorched black mark on its Scale Armor.
Around the mark, the dark purple scales began to turn white, crack, and flake off.
It looked down at the wound, its pupils shrinking abruptly.
"What... what is this Power..."
Li Xing didn’t answer.
He raised his left hand again.
Twelve black Gravity Vortexes instantly formed above his palm!
Each one was three feet in diameter!
The twelve giant black vortexes spun rapidly along the Star Orbit’s trajectory, growing larger and larger...
"Go!"
The vortexes instantly teleported above the Corrupt Monarch’s head and merged again, forming a Gravity Vortex five hundred feet in diameter!
The vortex spun in the opposite direction of normal spacetime.
The Corrupt Monarch’s body began to slide uncontrollably toward the center of the vortex.
"No..."
It roared at the sky, its thirteen Tentacles digging desperately into the ground.
But the ground where the Tentacles were anchored began to crack.
The Rock was torn apart by Gravity!
"You think... this is enough to kill me?!"
The Corrupt Monarch snapped its head up, and a blinding purple light suddenly erupted from within its body!
’Hm? This purple light... it’s not its own Power.’
Li Xing saw the difference at a glance. The moment the purple light appeared, the hair on his body stood on end.
The purple light pierced through the Scale Armor, bathing the entire palace in a deep violet glow!
Wherever it passed, space began to disintegrate and the Rules fell into disarray.
The still-struggling human pillars, whether man or beast, instantly dissolved into pools of blood!
’This aura... the Power of an Abyss Lord.’
A sharp glint flashed in Li Xing’s eyes.
The pollution Link behind the Corrupt Monarch was connected to a true Level Five Abyss Lord!
The Corrupt Monarch’s aura began to skyrocket.
Late Stage of True Form... True Form Peak... True Form Peak Limit...
Finally, it abruptly crossed into an extremely profound Realm.
Level Four Abyssal Commander!
This was a terrifying existence equivalent to a Level Four Morning Star Wizard in the Wizard World!
Space grew viscous... and then solidified.
The moment the purple light appeared, Li Xing’s body was rendered immobile.
Like a fly trapped in amber, he could only watch as the Corrupt Monarch’s aura continued to surge.
The Corrupt Monarch’s body now reached a height of five hundred feet!
It looked down at Li Xing, a savage grin spreading across its twisted face.
"Haha... You thought I was alone?!"
With a vicious laugh, its thirteen Tentacles swelled to twice their size!
"After I kill you, I’ll see how your flesh and blood differ from that old geezer’s."
A fissure suddenly split open on its chest, and a beam of purple light shot straight toward Li Xing.
Wherever the purple light passed, space tore and warped, emitting a fractured hum.
It was like a tsunami, like the heavens themselves were collapsing!
Li Xing watched the purple light fly toward him, not a trace of panic in his eyes.
The moment the purple light touched his body...
Within his Sea of Spirit, the panel trembled slightly, emitting an even more profound ripple.
The ripple was so faint it was almost imperceptible.
But in the next instant, the purple light surging toward Li Xing melted away silently, like snow under a scorching sun.
It vanished at its very source, not leaving even a single trace behind.
The savage grin on the Corrupt Monarch’s face froze.
It looked down at the purple light on its chest.
The purple light was still pouring out, but as soon as it came within three feet of Li Xing, it would vanish into thin air.
It was as if an invisible line was severing its Power in half.
"You... What are you?!"
The Corrupt Monarch was truly shaken now. Its strongest trump card, the very thing it relied on to turn the tables, had actually failed.
Li Xing looked at it, the corners of his mouth slowly curling into a smile.
That smile made the thirteen Tentacles on the Corrupt Monarch’s back recoil in unison.
"The farce... is over."
Li Xing said softly.
And then... three Star Orbits erupted at once!
Three hundred feet! Five hundred feet! Eight hundred feet...
A thousand feet!!!
A Thousand Feet Star Orbit Dharma Aspect stretched across the sky!
The Gravity Orbit flowed rapidly, distorting space for miles around.
Below, the entire mountain of flesh and blood began to tilt.
The purple liquid pouring from its orifices flowed backward into the sky.
The skeletons embedded on both sides of the fissures were torn from the mountain by an invisible force.
They floated in midair, then silently crumbled into the finest dust.
The Purification Orbit scattered a silver radiance.
Wherever the light touched, the corrupted palace began to collapse on a massive scale.
The pillars of flesh and blood dissolved rapidly, as if splashed with strong acid.
The few extremely lucky human survivors who had just fallen from the pillars were lifted by a gentle force and sent miles away before they could even react.
The Time Orbit created a disturbance, and the flow of Time within a radius of several miles became chaotic.
In some places, it was ten times faster; in others, ten times slower.
Caught within it, the Corrupt Monarch’s movements became noticeably sluggish.
The speed at which it swung its Tentacles would suddenly slow to a crawl in one area...
...then, upon leaving that area, it would accelerate so fast it couldn’t control its momentum, crashing headfirst into the edge of the Gravity Vortex.
Li Xing gently raised his hand.
Twelve Gravity Vortexes appeared once more, then began to accelerate, spin, and merge.
Finally, the vortex contracted abruptly!
From five hundred feet in diameter, to three hundred, to one hundred!
It enveloped the Corrupt Monarch, the powerful Gravity pulling it toward the vortex’s center.
It struggled desperately, its body twisting and its thirteen Tentacles flailing wildly.
But every time a tentacle extended, a section was torn off by the vortex’s Gravity!
"NO!!!"
It roared in terror, the purple light within its body surging madly as it tried to contact the Abyss Lord again.
But just as the Link lit up...
The panel flashed again, and a ripple swept across the battlefield.
This time... the Link was completely severed.
The Corrupt Monarch was stunned.
It lowered its monstrous head and looked at its chest.
There, where the channel to the Abyss had been, was now only a patch of Void.
For the first time in over three hundred years, it could no longer feel that Power.
For the first time, it had to face this terrifying enemy alone.
Li Xing floated in the center of his Thousand Feet Dharma Aspect, looking down at it.
There was no hatred in his eyes, no satisfaction, but... a trace of pity.
And... the calm of someone completing a mission.
"It’s over."
He raised his right hand and clenched it into a fist.
The Gravity Vortex suddenly shrank to its limit, becoming a terrifying black hole three feet in diameter!
The Corrupt Monarch’s five-hundred-foot body was forcibly compressed, twisted, and collapsed...
...until it became a fist-sized, dark purple bead.
The bead floated in midair, its surface covered in a dense web of cracks.
Deep within the cracks, a twisted face could be faintly seen, screaming, struggling, and thrashing.
With a mere thought from Li Xing,
CRACK! The bead shattered.
The resulting powder scattered in the air and was utterly annihilated by the Purification Starlight.
"Haaa..."
Li Xing let out a long breath as his thousand-foot Dharma Aspect slowly shrank back to its normal size.
"This time... it’s really over."
「Meanwhile, outside the Starlight Holy City.」
Five Corrupt Lords led a tide of a million Corrupted Beasts in an assault on the Holy City!
Below the city walls, the beast tide surged forward like a black ocean, wave after wave.
The roars of the Corrupted Beasts shook the heavens, and those at the front had already begun to climb into the breaches in the wall!
Li Yao stood in the center of a breach.
Behind him, every Starlight Guard bore wounds.
One Starlight Guard Captain was even missing his left arm, which had been severed at the shoulder. The stump was bound tightly with a strip of cloth, but blood still seeped out.
Yet he still stood on the wall, not retreating a single step.
Li Yao gripped his Wide-Blade Greatsword, his expression grim.
Suddenly, the sword at his waist vibrated, and a wave of warmth spread from deep within the blade.
He looked down and saw a silver light shining from the part of the blade near the hilt.
The light was warm and gentle, like moonlight, like the light of dawn.
The light flowed out from within the blade, spreading along its edge until, in the blink of an eye, the entire sword was covered in a silver glow.
Li Yao’s heart pounded. ’Could it be...?’
The next second... the silver light exploded!
A silver ripple expanded outward from him in all directions!
Wherever the ripple passed, the Corrupted Beasts that had charged onto the wall vanished silently, like pencil drawings being erased!
They didn’t even have time to let out a cry.
The beast tide below the wall came to a sudden halt.
The first few thousand Corrupted Beasts in the charge had been reduced to Void by the silver light.
The beasts behind them hadn’t even reacted before the front ranks were completely empty.
Li Yao looked down at the sword in his hand.
The silver light was still flowing, warm and steady, as if someone were gently holding his hand.
He looked up, gazing to the north, and his eyes suddenly reddened.
"Brother..."
But he quickly composed himself, raised his sword, and pointed it at the forces below the wall.
"Counterattack with all your might! Charge!"
"CHARGE!!!"
The ten thousand Starlight Guards behind him roared in unison and leaped from the city wall after Li Yao!
Wherever the silver sword-light passed, swathes of Corrupted Beasts fell!
Seeing this, two Corrupt Lords pounced on Li Yao at the same time.
He sidestepped the first one’s claw strike, using the momentum to spin and thrust his sword into the eye socket of the second!
The blade pierced its skull, and the silver light exploded within its cranium!
Before the Lord could even scream, its head blew apart into fragments.
Li Yao pulled out his sword. Fetid black blood gushed out, but he ignored it completely and turned to face the first Lord.
That Corrupt Lord actually took a step back.
Suddenly, it was as if something was being torn apart.
A vast, immense sound came from high up in the sky.
VMMMM...
The thick gray clouds that had accumulated for over three hundred years were torn open, creating a rift that stretched across the horizon.
The gray clouds... began to dissipate.
The first ray of golden sunlight in over three hundred years shone down upon the land.
Li Yao looked up at that ray of sunlight.
The sunlight fell on his face, warm and blinding.
He squinted, and something welled up in his eyes.
He took a deep breath, tightened his grip on his sword, and turned to face the rest of the beast tide.
"My... brother... has already killed your Monarch."
"Now it’s my turn. All of you... will die here!"