Chapter 139 - Desperate Attack
Cale sighed internally, ’He’s negating my domains for a few seconds in intervals. Is that some kind of artifact? Or maybe some technique?’
He turned to execute another Three Illusionary Steps escape, but Wang Yunfeng was already there, appearing beside him with a devastating leap.
"You think I’d let you do that again?" he roared, his punch carrying enough force to shatter stone.
Cale parried it with the flat side of his blade, deflecting the worst of the impact. But in focusing on blocking Wang Yunfeng’s direct assault, he couldn’t dodge the continuous barrage of small fog blades still swirling around him.
They found exposed skin, opening new wounds, drawing more blood, forcing him to expend even more energy on constant healing.
Cale made a split-second decision.
He grabbed Wang Yunfeng’s robe and executed a suplex, throwing him over his shoulder and slamming him hard onto the ground with his back bearing the full impact.
’Sigh... this is overbearing. I should take my divine consciousness back and fight at one hundred percent.’
While Wang Yunfeng was still recovering from the throw, Cale leaped over him, attempting to punch his face while he was vulnerable. But Wang Yunfeng dodged at the last moment, and Cale’s punch cratered the earth beneath them instead.
Wang Yunfeng quickly jumped back, his mind racing through calculations of his own.
’This boy has nearly all his techniques coordinated perfectly, and even healing himself constantly. Isn’t he concerned about his qi reserve?’
But Cale made a critical decision in that moment. He stopped maintaining all three domains.
He moved, but this time he didn’t activate three, but only one. The Chaos Domain, influencing his chaos qi more directly and efficiently.
His energy was being reduced far too quickly to maintain all three simultaneously. He would use one for now while his reserves filled back up, then rotate between them as per situation.
Their fight continued with renewed intensity.
Cale slashed at Wang Yunfeng’s forearm, drawing blood, but the Vice Patriarch responded instantly by throwing a thunderbolt explosive that detonated between them, forcing separation.
Wang Yunfeng sighed heavily, frustration coloring his voice.
"How tedious. Why can’t you die quickly?"
Cale stopped using his restoration laws then as well, a decision to conserve energy. The cuts accumulated across his body, blood flowing freely as he accepted the damage rather than waste resources healing.
He jumped high into the air, and in a shocking move, dismissed his soul armor entirely. Only his pants remained as he exposed his full body to the elements.
Using the Thorned Lotus as a foothold, he jumped once more, launching himself directly at Wang Yunfeng.
Then, in a move that defied all possibilities Yunfeng could think of, Cale burned his own entire body.
Chaos flames enveloped him completely, mixed with flame and chaos intent, creating an inferno that consumed his own flesh even as he used it as a weapon. His runic tattoos flared to life, protecting him from the worst of the self-inflicted damage, but blood erupted from his nose and ears nonetheless.
He hugged Wang Yunfeng.
Simply wrapped his burning arms around the Vice Patriarch and held him in an embrace of pure, destructive fire.
"W-waargh! L-leave me! You bastard... argh!... you! Leave me!" Wang Yunfeng wailed as his body burned under the pressure of the chaos domain increasing the flames’ efficiency to monstrous levels. His flesh charred, his muscles roasted, his very essence burning away.
He tried to punch Cale’s back, managing to break one of his ribs slightly, but Cale didn’t release and kept burning him to ash.
Wang Yunfeng desperately willed one of his remaining Divine Artifacts into existence.
A shield-like object materialized out of thin air and pushed Cale back with explosive force as it formed, creating separation between them.
Cale smiled, a truly horrific expression.
His white hair, previously tied back, had come loose. Long strands stuck to the damp blood covering his face, creating an appearance so grotesque that even Wang Yunfeng felt terror at the sight.
"Hahahaha! More! More! Come on!" Cale shouted with manic glee, his voice carrying undertones of someone losing grip on sanity in the throes of battle.
He jumped forward again, slashing at the defensive shield with Noxis repeatedly, his blade striking with force.
One half of Wang Yunfeng’s face was now burnt severely, the skin charred black, though his eyes miraculously remained intact. One of his arms was roasted down to the muscle tissue, and due to the chaos attribute infused in the flames, he couldn’t heal the damage no matter how much power he channeled into restoration.
Cale’s soul bodies, working in synchronization, kept reinforcing him from the sidelines.
They consumed spirit-gathering pills and drank elixirs, their work allowing him to recover approximately one-quarter of his energy reserves simply by standing away from active combat for a few seconds.
Cale opened his Ink Sword Domain again, maintaining two domains now.
Wang Yunfeng, having no choice, retaliated with his own domain enhancement. If he didn’t match Cale’s domain pressure, he would be seriously injured or killed.
Niva rejoined Fiora’s side, her eyes widening at the scene of carnage before them.
"They’re clashing with domains again? Why?" she asked, confused.
Emma sighed heavily beside her.
"That we can’t guess. It’s decisions made in the heat of battle."
Cale turned the Thorned Lotus into a spinning drill head mid-air, its rotation reaching speeds that made the air scream. Then, he placed a paperman substitution talisman between his teeth.
Wang Yunfeng attacked, his punch aimed at Cale’s shoulder with enough force to dislocate bone.
But Cale tore the talisman with his teeth at the exact moment of impact.
His body vanished, replaced by a ton of papermen cutouts that took the full force of Wang Yunfeng’s punch.
’Good. If used like this, these talismans can be useful too,’ Cale thought, reappearing several meters away.
Wang Yunfeng continued his counteroffensive, amplifying his bones and muscles with pure intent, actually unlocking new cultivation stages he’d been unable to achieve before through the desperation of combat.
Cale made several slashes which Wang Yunfeng dodged with increasing skill. The Vice Patriarch punched at his side, throwing him aside by tens of meters with the force of the impact.
Cale kipped up instantly, but he was breathing heavily now.
"He’s getting adapted to my domains!" he said with anger. "Sigh, just escaping from them for a few seconds is an enviable ability, but now this!"
Before he could register the danger, Wang Yunfeng appeared behind him, crouching low before executing a leg sweep. Cale’s feet went out from under him and he fell flat on his back. Yunfeng instantly kicked him, slamming his body into a nearby wall with devastating force.
"Cough... kugh! Fuck!... huff..." Cale coughed blood, his voice hoarse.
’My energy consumption speed is rising higher than my energy recovery speed.’
This was problematic.
He quickly consumed a healing pill, deciding to stop wasting energy on active restoration magic for now.
His mind raced, working through possibilities at lightning speed.
’He can easily negate my domains multiple times, making them futile... wait... Can I make it so that he is not included in the space of my domain, and only appears inside it when I attack?’
But such a technique seemed impossibly complex. Was it even theoretically possible?
’It should be, right? It’s my fucking domain. I should be its ruler. No, even if I exclude him from the domain, he can just change positions to enter again, making my technique useless.’
But what if...
’What about making a smaller domain? Even if it’s smaller, he can just... no, wait! If it’s a domain which only covers my sword as a coating along with intent itself? Then... that surely... has a possibility to work!’
The realization struck him like lightning.
A smile appeared on his fanatic face. His bloodied lips curved upward, his eyes gleaming.
The expression made Wang Yunfeng uneasy.
Because he’d seen that smile before, on the faces of desperate cultivators who’d suddenly discovered they had nothing left to lose and would literally waste their lives only to kill the enemy.