Chapter 181 - 180: Golden Diting Cultivator (3)
"Clones?" Chu Yan scoffed, cracking her whip, the sound echoing like thunder. "A parlor trick for cowards!"
One of the Lin Yuan clones simply vanished.
He utilized the Immortal Cloud Step. The speed was so absolute, that Chu Yan’s Early-Stage divine sense failed to track the movement entirely.
Before Chu Yan could even draw her arm back for a strike, the Lin Yuan clone materialized directly in the air above her, standing casually on the back of the massive mosquito beast.
Chu Yan’s haughty smirk vanished, replaced by sheer terror. "What—"
The clone did not speak. He merely raised his hand and delivered a backhand strike imbued with the physical weight of the Ancient Beast Body.
The impact sounded like a mountain collapsing.
The sheer force of the strike completely bypassed Chu Yan’s dragon-scale armor. Her jaw shattered instantly under the terrifying impact, and her entire body was launched from the back of the mosquito beast like a cannonball.
She flew through the air, screaming through her broken mouth before crashing head-first into the canyon wall.
Boom!
The rock cratered violently around the point of impact, sending chunks of stone and dust cascading to the ground. Chu Yan’s body slid down the shattered wall before slumping onto the ground, completely unconscious.
She had been overwhelmed in less than half a breath.
Chu Ying froze, his arrogant laughter dying in his throat as he watched his Junior Sister get swatted out of the air like a bothersome fly.
"You... you bastard!" Chu Ying roared, his Initiate Stage Dao Resolve exploding outward in a shockwave of furious, dark Qi.
He realized instantly that he had severely miscalculated. This was no ordinary Early-Stage cultivator!
Lin Yuan and his remaining two clones looked up at the enraged insect-master.
"Your turn," all three Lin Yuans spoke in perfect, chilling unison.
"Devouring Swarm of the Nether Heavens!" Chu Ying bellowed, weaving a frantic hand seal. He bit his own tongue, spitting a mouthful of blood onto his hands to catalyze his ultimate sect technique.
The massive mosquito beast beneath him screeched, its abdomen pulsating violently. From the pores of the beast, and from the expansive spatial pouches at Chu Ying’s waist, a literal sea of demonic insects poured forth. There were millions of them. Armored centipedes, acid-spitting wasps, and marrow-drinking beetles formed a suffocating, buzzing black cloud that blotted out the silver sky. The swarm moved as a single, hive-mind entity, radiating a terrifying draining aura that promised to devour Lin Yuan down to his very bones.
The two Lin Yuan clones leaped into the air, drawing entirely upon their cultivation, as they activated the divine skill, [Myriad Swords Return to the Sect].
It was the absolute form of sword manipulation!!
The air within the canyon violently hummed. From the void, thousands, then tens of thousands of flying swords condensed into existence, forged from pure, crackling purple lightning. The swords formed a massive, overwhelming formation that stretched across the entire width of the canyon, rotating with the might of Heaven and Earth.
The spectacle was astonishing. The sky turned into a literal ocean of bladed metal.
With a simultaneous, downward slash of their hands, the two clones unleashed the formation.
Countless swords descended at once, forming a massive sword formation that crashed headlong into the Devouring Swarm of the Nether Heavens. The collision was nothing short of apocalyptic. The deafening screech of millions of dying insects was quickly drowned out by the constant, explosive thunderclaps of the lightning-infused swords.
Their destructive power was overwhelming. The swords tore through the enormous black cloud, slicing apart swarms of acid wasps and reducing armored centipedes to ash with every passing moment. The once-terrifying insect swarm that Chu Ying had taken such pride in was being completely eradicated before his eyes, its countless creatures disappearing under the relentless assault in mere seconds.
Chu Ying was horrified. His Initiate Stage Qi was draining rapidly just trying to sustain the swarm against the relentless barrage of swords.
"No! I will not be bested by an ant!" Chu Ying screamed, completely losing his mind to panic and rage.
He abandoned the dying swarm. He stood upon the back of his mosquito beast and funneled the full might of his Initiate Stage Dao Resolve into a singular trump card.
The mosquito beast opened its grotesque maw. Chu Ying channeled a massive beam of dark, spiritual-draining energy directly through the beast’s mouth, aiming it straight at the original Lin Yuan standing on the ground. The beam was terrifying; it was designed to bypass physical matter and instantly drain a cultivator’s spiritual sea entirely dry.
Lin Yuan watched the devastating beam of dark energy hurtling toward him.
He didn’t dodge. He didn’t raise a barrier.
He activated the divine technique: [Heaven and Earth Shift].
The fabric of space directly in front of Lin Yuan suddenly folded inward, creating a flawless mirror. The technique was capable of shifting and manipulating space, as well as redirecting an opponent’s strength. The cultivator can instantly transfer and redirect the force of an incoming attack, using the enemy’s own power against them!
The massive beam of spiritual-draining energy struck the invisible mirror, and In an instant, the entire attack was flawlessly transferred through the distorted fabric of space.
The space directly behind Chu Ying and his massive mosquito beast suddenly tore open.
From within the rift, the exact same beam of devastating, spiritual-draining energy erupted without warning, striking both Chu Ying and his mount squarely in the back.
It was their own attack used against them!!
Chu Ying let out a blood-curdling shriek of agony. The draining energy, supercharged by his own Initiate Stage cultivation, violently backfired. The colossal Blood-Winged Mosquito Beast immediately withered, its leathery wings disintegrating as its life force was instantly siphoned away by its own master’s attack.
Chu Ying collapsed, his Qi utterly depleted, his meridians burning with the backlash of the reversed attack. He tumbled from the sky, crashing heavily onto the floor next to the dying Jin Rou.
The two Lin Yuan clones dissipated into harmless mist, having served their purpose.
The original Lin Yuan began to walk slowly toward the broken, groaning form of the Chu Province cultivator.
Chu Ying tried to push himself backward, his eyes wide with a terror he had never known in his arrogant life. "Stay back... stay back! I am of the Chu Province! If you kill me... Young Master Kuang will..."
Lin Yuan stopped a few paces away. He looked down at the pathetic, broken man who had claimed to be an Initiate of the Great Dao.
Then, he raised his right hand toward the silver sky, and activated, [Heavenly Thunder Break].
The sky of the Void Ascension Battlefield violently ruptured. The ambient, wild Qi of the pocket realm was forcefully subjugated by Lin Yuan’s will. He gathered the pure power of heavenly thunder, condensing a terrifying storm directly above the canyon.
The sky turned pitch black, illuminated only by blinding flashes of purple lightning. Deafening thunderclaps shook the very bedrock of the realm, vibrating so intensely that the teeth rattled in Chu Ying’s skull.
Lin Yuan brought his hand down.
A single, devastating pillar of concentrated heavenly thunder struck Chu Ying directly in the chest.
It did not kill him, Lin Yuan explicitly controlled the power to adhere to Elder Xuanji’s rules of the tournament, but the power was extremely fierce. The lightning violently shattered every major meridian in Chu Ying’s body, instantly rendering him completely paralyzed and permanently crippling his Initiate Stage foundation.
Chu Ying’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped into the dirt, entirely unconscious.
Lin Yuan stood silently amidst the battlefield, his robes fluttering wildly in the aftermath of the storm. His flawless body crackled with residual arcs of the terrifying purple lightning, each spark illuminating the surrounding darkness with the majestic brilliance of heavenly thunder. The air still trembled from the violence of the battle, yet Lin Yuan remained completely calm, his presence carrying an overwhelming sense of power.
He slowly turned his gaze toward the bleeding and astonished Golden Diting cultivator, Jin Rou, who stared at him as though he had just witnessed a deity descend from the heavens into the mortal world.
Lin Yuan’s eyes narrowed, filled with unbreakable resolve. Then, without saying a word, he took a single step forward.
It was only one step.
Yet the moment his foot touched the ground, the surrounding space trembled violently. The earth seemed to shudder beneath his presence, as though that single step possessed enough force to shake the heavens, overturn the mountains, and stir the rivers of the vast world itself.