Volume 5, Chapter 45 – Defeat (Two-in-One)

Bai Xiang naturally noticed the extremely drastic change in the other party’s attitude.

If Fang Yang, when he had appeared in the form of that frail Daoist, had seemed somewhat weak and indecisive, then this “giant Fang Yang” now displayed something entirely different: resolute determination.

He kept acting before like he was trying to persuade me to consider the greater good… so is it because I’ve finally enraged him?

Bai Xiang was thinking the same thing to herself.

No. If that were the reason, he should have shown this side of himself back in New Yujing City. His change has nothing to do with how many people I’ve killed, or even who I killed. It should be because, somewhere in the course of all this, he believes he has finally seen through my true nature.

My true nature?

So it’s Master’s old “On Monsters and Men” again… planning to degrade anything he can’t understand into “monster,” into “other,” and then stand on the moral high ground with a clear conscience while using every means possible to exterminate it?

With a cold laugh, Bai Xiang sensed surging waves crashing toward her from behind.

It was the seawater that had previously been forced aside when Fang Yang transformed. It had been shoved thousands of meters away, forcibly creating a massive hollow on the seabed, and now it was sweeping back under the pull of gravity with a force truly like a heaven-sea pouring in upside down.

Bzzz—

Bai Xiang raised the Shenming Sword in her right hand, then used several slender fingers of her left hand to lightly pluck it, like playing a zither, producing a series of crisp humming notes.

This was a supremely subtle manipulation of vibration-force. Invisible ripples spread outward clinging to qi force, silently merging into the nearby seawater. Then, through the Tianyuan energy attached to every drop of water, she remotely controlled it, making the seawater above and to one side of her spin and condense into a gigantic tornado connecting top and bottom.

With a casual swing of her sword, the giant waterspout twisted toward Fang Yang and smashed down. At the same time, a layer of black-mud flesh suddenly spread across his back like a swelling cloak, wrapping around his entire body, while giant golden eyes surged in from every direction. The physical binding of the black mud and the gaze of the divine-pool domain took effect together, locking him firmly in place.

“It seems you still haven’t truly understood the power of the void,” Fang Yang said in a low voice.

“How strange… the threat you give me feels so intense, yet what you show is still quite a bit worse than what I expected.”

“It feels as though you’re missing something crucial.”

Hm?

Bai Xiang narrowed her eyes.

He can actually remain unaffected too?

Boom!!!

The air exploded. As Fang Yang shook his body, the knotted muscles all over him began writhing like living things. Above almost every pore, an extremely subtle tearing phenomenon appeared.

That tearing phenomenon distorted the void, and the compression produced airbursts. The direct result was that those airbursts seemed to form a “protective membrane” over the surface of his body, blocking out seawater, black mud, and even gaze itself.

“Hah!” Fang Yang roared, stamping his bare foot heavily into the ground. In an instant he crushed a giant pit into this section of seabed ruins, sending several hundred wildly spreading spiderweb-like cracks racing outward.

How incredible…

The Jade Spirit was issuing frenzied warnings, but Bai Xiang seemed not to notice at all. Instead, she gazed at the scene with immense admiration, immense wonder, and even a trace of excitement and delight appeared on her face.

He has torn the “void” apart completely…

And the method is entirely different from my own, and from the methods used by all the enemies I’ve faced in the past. He is truly controlling the power produced when the void is broken, turning every last bit of that force to his own use, rather than simply destroying for destruction’s sake and wasting it…

“In a ‘Saint War,’ and you still dare let your mind wander?”

A black shadow suddenly appeared in front of her, extending a huge fan-like hand straight out and seizing Bai Xiang’s head inside its grip.

In the gap between those fingers, a golden pupil widened slightly. Looking at it from the corner of her eye, Bai Xiang saw that the black-mud flesh far away in the seawater seemed to be collapsing in the opposite direction, while the giant waterspout smashing down had been drilled through with a huge hole at its center.

There was no other visible effect.

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There was no black rift created by tearing the void, as if all the force had been condensed into the muscular flesh standing before her.

That enormous force struck downward. Bai Xiang immediately felt something slam into her back. Fang Yang had simply seized her by the head, crossed the distance through the air in an instant, and smashed her into the ruins.

“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH—!!!”

The massive saint kept roaring like a beast as he pinned her body to the ground, shoved and dragged her along it, then violently hurled her forward.

Boom!!!

Only at the final instant, when he flung her away, did the airbursts trail out a razor-thin black-rift line, proving in that manner that their destructive power was far beyond anything sight alone could testify to.

Bang!

Before the dust could clear, the ground under Fang Yang’s feet collapsed again, and he rushed at top speed into the crater Bai Xiang’s body had smashed out.

As the muddy silt parted before his eyes, he finally saw Bai Xiang again.

At last, this empress seemed somewhat bedraggled. Most of her clothes appeared to have been shredded away. Her two toned yet long, beautiful legs were bare, while black mist formed from qi force wrapped around her body, shaping itself into a dress of the same style as before.

Her hairstyle had completely come loose as well. There were a few abrasions on her face. Even the sharp treasured sword that had followed her through battle after battle was now slightly bent. She looked as though she had already reached the end of the road.

“Don’t blame me…”

The giant reached out toward the aura he could sense, his voice rumbling like muffled thunder.

“I was always trying to persuade you…”

“But you’re not human, Di Xiang.”

“You’re a heavenly demon, a monster, something that descended from outside the rules of both ‘Loss of Order’ and ‘Order.'”

“You’re too dangerous. I can’t let you keep growing any further.”

“Even if it means sacrificing this lifespan, for the greater good I must kill you here and ensure the peace of this world…”

Smack!

A pale arm lifted out of the mud, the palm pressing against his advancing force.

Hm?

The giant froze. Then he suddenly saw that Di Xiang’s appearance had changed somewhat.

It was far more than just her clothing. Her entire skin seemed to have opened and begun exhaling blood and qi. Vast vital essence gathered over her head into a small vortex forming at high speed. Raised membranes bulged along her cheeks and the corners of her eyes. A terrifying power was brewing inside that body.

“Fleshly sainthood.” The giant quickly calmed again. “From what you said before, you’ve even manifestly refined the Hidden Spirit Orifice? You are different from all of us. You broke through by excavating the great medicine in your own bodily orifices.”

“Compared to us, your advantage is that you’ve broken free of destiny. Your lifespan has expanded and extended drastically, and you’ve also skipped the step of interacting with demonic power, so your strength obeys you more smoothly.”

“But how could doing it that way come without a price?”

“At this stage, you have taken the initiative in rejecting destiny’s control. That means you are fated to be unable to borrow strength from heaven and earth.”

“Give up that shallow manipulation of Tianyuan.”

“It may work against cultivators of lower realms, but against me… it will be of no use.”

As he spoke, the giant raised the huge and heavy Sun-Crown Needle as if lifting a pillar. He pressed its “slender” end against Bai Xiang’s chest and suddenly exerted force, trying to use it to crush her flesh into pulp.

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But it would not go down.

Clang—

The giant suddenly heard the sound of metal shattering. Turning his head, he saw that Bai Xiang had crushed the Shenming Sword with her free hand, letting the metal fragments scatter golden light as they hissed and sank into her body.

Golden radiance flowed over her, nearly covering her entire figure. One golden pattern after another gathered along the raised membranes on Bai Xiang’s face and converged between her brows, forming a scarlet flame-like dao-mark there. The remaining golden patterns spread over her face, forming a crown with dangling strings of beads.

What is this…?

Boom!!!

Before the giant could react, Bai Xiang abruptly opened her golden eyes and kicked him in the stomach.

The giant instantly activated his defensive mechanism by reflex. The muscles there immediately writhed and twisted, creating a layer of “microscopic airbursts” over the surface of his body. Only on the microscopic level could one clearly see the tiny black-rift slits being torn open. He made exquisitely precise use of all of it, forming a “protective membrane” to block her kick.

But then something happened that left him utterly stunned, beyond belief.

With that kick from the empress, he could first clearly feel that her bare, pale, beautiful foot had tensed the protective membrane, but truly could not break through it.

Yet immediately afterward, a tremendous force traveled down that fair little leg, all the way into the delicate foot and toes—and in the end, it even produced a layer of “microscopic airbursts” outside the surface of her body as well!

How is this possible…?

His mind went completely blank. The giant stared with dazed eyes as the terrifying force exploded through his chest and abdomen, boring straight through skin, through organs, and punching clean out through his back!

Smack!

Yet before he could fully register what had happened, the leg that had pierced into him withdrew in an instant. A breath carrying a bloody wind closed in at once, as though another hand had clamped down around his throat.

“The gap between a body-tempering realm that has fully lit up the ‘Three-Origin Orifices’ and a body-tempering realm forcibly raised by crude means… seems to be something you don’t understand.”

Through the swaying bead curtains, the giant found himself unable to see that incomparably beautiful face clearly. In the next instant, he felt his body violently reverse and slam into the ground. Just as he himself had done to her earlier, he was crushed into the earth and dragged along with a ripping, scraping sound before being flung away with a swing of the arm!

Boom!!!

The motions produced by the giant-transformed body were much louder. The ground was ripped by inertia into a deep trench, and Fang Yang spun through the air and smashed into the very edge of the ruin-space, spraying out a huge mouthful of blood mixed with fragments of organs.

This was no ordinary injury.

In his current state, every wound he suffered would be reflected back onto his “true self.”

That single thrusting kick had cost him sixty years of life. This latest blow had stripped away nearly another forty.

If this keeps going, then won’t it…

But what Fang Yang truly could not understand was still the force Bai Xiang had used with her toes at the very end.

“Microscopic airbursts.”

A technique that should require many years of cultivation in the saint realm—she saw me use it once, and she learned it?

Then the two sides’ microscopic airbursts canceled one another out, and the element that generated the subsequent opposing force, the part where it became a real head-on clash, was pure strength, brute force, wasn’t it?

And in that pure clash, my strength was completely unable to stop her.

What’s going on…

Even if she has achieved fleshly sainthood, how could the gap be this vast?

For a moment unable to accept it, the giant forced himself up—only to see Bai Xiang walking toward him.

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Her black robe clung to her body like smoke, like gauze, drifting to the side with the flowing seawater together with her disheveled white hair.

Each time those bare legs crossed, each time those pale, tender feet left imprints in the mud and rubble, the crown she wore swayed, shifting the strings of beads before and behind her face, making those golden eyes indistinct, slightly impossible to see clearly.

An abyssal terror descended out of nowhere, instantly filling the giant’s inner body-scape.

The culmination of years of cultivation, his final trump card, had been crushed like this by another. Naturally he found it impossible to accept. He immediately roared and pushed himself upright. The ground beneath him collapsed into a fresh pit, while “microscopic airbursts” were continuously born and bursting over the surface of his body, carving out bizarre forward afterimages as he charged the enemy.

And all Bai Xiang did was let the right foot she had been about to step forward with hover for a brief instant in midair.

Then she stepped down, and in the next moment, her whole body seemed to pass through the void itself. She suddenly appeared directly in front of the giant’s charging path and smashed a fist into the right side of his face.

Wh… y…?

In slow motion, cheek and fist met and scraped together, the two layers of microscopic airbursts canceling each other out. The face of the fist drove into the skin of his cheek, sending rings of flesh rippling outward.

Boom!!!

The seawater exploded. At the very center of the collision, a few black-rift cracks faintly spread outward. The giant, who had charged in on a straight line, bent sideways like a ball struck by a tennis racket and was sent flying by that single punch.

Pfft… bang!

Crash!

He rolled all the way, gouging another trench through the ruins.

Then came the shattering of stone, as though time itself had corroded and weathered it away. More afterimages shot out again, carrying his anger toward Bai Xiang.

Boom!!!

The two sides slammed together again, releasing a tremendous shockwave—and once more, the giant was blasted away.

But this time he had improved slightly. He had finally managed to block Bai Xiang’s concentrated armor-piercing blow. He still coughed blood, but the injuries all over his body were also rapidly healing under the distribution of his blood and qi.

“Again!”

With a furious roar, the giant rose once more and resumed this saint-realm close-quarters battle.

Boom boom boom!!

Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom!!!

Unceasing strikes, punches, chopping blows, kicks… the two of them were like a pair of turbine engines incarnating destruction itself. Every crossing and every collision wrought enormous damage on the ruin-space. Those tiny cracks were constantly accumulating in the void, constantly spreading outward.

This is a “Saint War”?

Zhao Feng and Dou Feiyun shielded Yao Xing as they hid in a corner, staring wide-eyed at the spectacle, not daring even to breathe too loudly.

Dou Feiyun was not even qualified to watch. She had only looked a few times when she felt those fine cracks drill into her eyes. She screamed and clutched them shut, bloody water seeping out through her fingers.

At one point Yao Xing even woke up once. Seeing that the empress in black was still beating the giant down, he gave one shrill cry and fainted again on the spot.

“You really are very strong.”

Bang!

Amid the chaotic melee, the giant finally landed a punch on Bai Xiang, making her spine let out a crisp crack and twisting her entire head unnaturally to one side.

But immediately afterward, that body seemed utterly unaffected. The knee she had lifted snapped out, and another vicious thrusting kick pierced straight through the giant’s throat!

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Hk… hk…!

The giant’s entire body instantly stiffened, but with his balance ruined because his spine had been pierced through, he could not continue moving for the moment. He could only make tiny rasping sounds from his throat as he stared at Bai Xiang in fear.

“If not for me, a realm and technique like yours would have been enough to let you manipulate Northern Yu into swallowing Great Xia step by step, perhaps even facilitating a grand ‘fusion’ with the Federation and uniting the strength of all humankind into one.”

As she spoke, Bai Xiang’s head slowly returned to its proper place, and with a crack her bones reconnected.

“But unfortunately…”

“You ran into me.”

She pulled back her leg. The empress in black floated above like an abyssal shadow, the darkness covering half her face.

“Heavenly demon? Monster?”

“What do you understand?”

“I do not follow the order of heaven and earth for the sake of ‘preserving order.'”

“I follow it so that the order of heaven and earth will be made to preserve what is right for me.”

“Injustice, disloyalty, unrighteousness, intolerance… I will force them straight with my own will.”

“Destiny?”

The empress bared her red lips in a chilling grin.

“I am destiny…!”

Her body spun halfway through the seawater, driving her blade-like right leg down in a savage arc. That “sword” split the giant in two from the center of his brow, just as Bai Xiang had previously done to him with the Shenming Sword!

She meant to tell Fang Yang this very clearly: no matter how many trump cards you use up, the ending will still be the same!

Rip!

The lingering force of her leg tore open a black rift. The ruin-space could no longer hold together at all. Beyond the black rift, a deeper and murkier layer of seawater could faintly be seen. The fissure continued spreading cracks in all directions, and then, with a bang, it shattered open like the bursting collapse of an enormous glass fishbowl.

Bang bang…!

The unstable void exploded in sequence along the edges. This was a naturally occurring airburst phenomenon, uncontrolled by anyone, and its force was vastly greater than that of “microscopic airbursts.” Great volumes of seawater, and even space itself, were twisted. The unconscious Yao Xing was caught by one whirl of seawater, which tore both his legs to shreds. He jolted awake from unconsciousness and screamed in agony.

To mortals, this was a disaster.

But to a saint—especially a saint who had just been defeated, and who knew that continuing to fight offered no chance of victory—it was a perfect chance to escape.

Without even attempting to throw out a final threat, the giant’s body suddenly compressed back into the Daoist state, and with a flash he moved to dive into the airburst vortex.

Trying to leave?

Bai Xiang stepped out. Brute-forcing her way through, despite the airbursts slicing wound after wound across the surface of her body, she instantly appeared behind him and reached for his neck.

At the critical moment, a savage light flashed through the Daoist’s eyes. From the sleeve-robe he had only just reformed, he flung a figure outward. It was none other than Yao Sheng, the reigning Yu Emperor.

One second earlier, Yao Sheng had still been studying in the academy. The next instant, he found himself facing a saint.

His face was full of confusion. He had no idea what was happening. He only felt a pale, delicate hand clamp around his throat.

When he looked back again, “sir” had already dived into the vortex and vanished completely.