Chapter 667: Battling the Blood Sun King (Two-in-One)

"Boom!!!"

What kind of punch was that? It was as if an ultimate, blazing sun had suddenly exploded, scattering into ten thousand spots of light before blooming into visible beams of blood-red sunlight that eclipsed everything in the surroundings.

The blood-red-haired man only had time to cross his arms over his chest.

Several streams of thick, dark blood qi surged up around him, forming a screen of light to shield his body.

"Hum—"

Stream after stream of blood-red aura surged forward, crashing against the screen.

At the boundary where they met, the streams of blood qi seemed to bite and tear at one another.

This was a direct clash between two types of blood. The manifested streams of blood qi had only one purpose in this moment: to devour and assimilate the opposition.

But a few seconds later, the blood-red-haired man's expression abruptly changed.

Before he could react, countless streams of crimson blood qi devoured the screen of light in front of him.

"Hiss—"

Every stream of blood qi that pierced the screen acted like a blade, instantly slashing massive gashes across the man's body.

Drops of blood were drawn out like pearls, slowly rolling from the wounds.

The man's body grew visibly emaciated.

This was a clash between [Blood] and [Blood]. If he lost, he would lose everything he had—including, naturally, the blood he was so proud of.

"Hum—"

At the last moment, a bloody light bloomed from the center of the man's brows, clearing away all the invading blood qi.

His torn wounds healed in an instant.

Without a moment's pause, the man immediately pulled away, widening the distance between himself and Fan Li.

A thousand meters away, the man stared at Fan Li, his eyes full of vigilance.

He looked utterly wretched. His expensive robes were torn to shreds, and his beautiful blood-red hair was charred black and curled as if it had been burned. Both sides of his face were smeared with blood.

By contrast, Fan Li did not look the least bit strained.

He stood in place, watching the man with a faint, mocking smile.

"Is this the top ten of the Surface World in this era? Isn't that a bit too weak?"

Rage surged in the man's eyes. A second later, the mark on his glabella—resembling both blood and fire—suddenly lit up, and clusters of flames poured out from it.

Green, red, blue, black...

Multicolored flames floated in the air, bringing about a massive transformation in the man's physical form.

His right arm turned into that of a giant ape, and his left hand became a bat wing. Half of his head took on the features of a lion, sprouting a thick mane, while sharp fangs jutted down from the corners of his mouth to extend past his lower lip.

Behind his back, a pair of enormous pink wings unfurled. Between the feathers writhed several crimson tongues.

"Roar—"

The roar echoed through the heavens and the earth.

The clusters of flames around the man surged upward, transforming into pillars of blood that pierced right through the sky.

Opposite him, Fan Li narrowed his eyes as he watched.

"So you're a lunatic..."

He stuck out his tongue and licked his lips.

A look of excitement appeared on his face.

"Keeping all that blood in your body without purifying it at all? No wonder you managed to reach the top ten of this generation."

Before he even finished speaking, the man across from him spread his arms. The multicolored pillars of blood-fire circling him aligned in a peculiar pattern, and a second later, they slammed straight toward Fan Li.

"Boom!!!"

The pillars of fire immediately scorched the entire plain to ash. The raging flames turned all the vegetation into fuel, the towering inferno resembling a constantly shifting mountain.

At the exact center of the collision, Fan Li's excited look gave way to a pained expression. He roared, the muscles all over his body trembling violently as streams of blood qi spread outward in an attempt to disperse the pillars of light.

But it was no use.

The pillars of fire were simply too overpowering.

The man wanted to end the battle with this single strike, holding absolutely nothing back.

Everything within a ten-li radius was reduced to a sea of fire.

The gentle breeze that had been blowing across the open plain was now incredibly violent. Everything seemed to be drawn upward in the distorted air.

Only incinerated grass and sparks danced wildly in midair.

"Ahhhhh—"

Fan Li's screams echoed out, and a trace of disdain flashed through the blood-red-haired man's mutated crimson eyes.

This was his true trump card. Unlike the traditional Pathway that converted the blood of other entities into one's own, his path was to completely preserve the blood of the entities he defeated, forcibly locking it inside his own body.

If Fan Li's path was about the absolute extreme, then his path was about all-encompassing containment.

Compared to Fan Li's path, he felt that his own was definitely stronger.

Because it required far more suffering.

Having taken in the blood of other entities, he had to endure severe rejection reactions every single day, all while controlling himself to ensure he didn't assimilate it.

In truth, he sometimes felt lost, wondering if enduring such torment was even worth it.

But today was his opportunity.

He was going to prove that his path was correct. Only his path was worthy of that entity's Divine Throne.

However, just as his thoughts shifted, a voice suddenly rang out behind him.

"Do you know how I became a king?"

Fan Li's voice sounded like a devil's whisper. The man jolted in shock. He whipped his head around, but it was already too late.

Looking like a charred corpse, Fan Li stared at the man. There wasn't a single inch of intact skin on his body, yet his aura still blazed as fiercely as ever.

Even fiercer, in fact.

A second later, Fan Li cracked a grin, his teeth forming the only flash of white on his pitch-black body.

Clasping his hands together, he smashed them heavily down onto the man's shoulders!!!

"Boom!!!"

The man's body plummeted heavily, his expression frozen in shock.

Suspended in the air, Fan Li coldly watched the man plunge toward the ground.

"During my final battle to become king, my opponent was a man named Xue Qianchou. The path he walked was exactly the same as yours."

"You think you're special, that you're a one-of-a-kind blood path genius unseen in ten thousand years because you've endured immense suffering. But the truth is, no one is completely unique."

"I just counted. You've fused over two hundred types of blood into your body, but..."

"Xue Qianchou had fused over eight hundred types."

"In the end, I was still the one who won. I am the strongest blood path genius this world has seen in ten thousand years—whether it was a few thousand years ago, or right now."

As Fan Li finished speaking with a soft chuckle, a pillar of light erupted from below.

Countless motes of divine radiance drifted slowly down from the sky.

A dense blood-red aura spread through the surroundings.

In that instant, the entire sky turned a deep blood-red.

"Heh..."

Fan Li gave a light chuckle, and his body shot explosively into the distance.

The man had advanced to the Demigod Realm.

He had sensed Fan Li's killing intent, so he chose to instantly step into the Demigod Realm using a lesser Deity's Divine Throne.

Then, he prepared to counterattack Fan Li.

Fan Li naturally knew this, which was why he instantly put distance between them.

He had prepared an escape method long ago. Now, with every bit of distance his charred body moved through the air, it transformed into more blood-red mist that scattered into the surroundings.

His opponent wouldn't be able to catch him.

He was very certain of this.

This was a method he had readied. He had started preparing it right after becoming king and had tested it several times.

A demigod was ultimately not a Deity, and it was even more impossible for a newly advanced one like his opponent to catch him.

However...

A figure simply appeared right in front of him.

It was a human.

Wearing a white T-shirt paired with simple but expensive-looking jeans, he looked like a completely ordinary boy next door out for a stroll.

But...

The appearance of the person in front of him made Fan Li's nerves pull taut instantly.

It was an instinctual premonition toward the strong.

This opponent was strong, and a human powerhouse that he didn't know at that.

He only ever got this feeling when encountering the kings of other eras.

But this wasn't one of the ten from his intelligence reports.

So who exactly was the man standing before him?

He didn't overthink it. He directly changed the direction of his mist, dodging to the side.

At a critical juncture like this, the opponent could catch up at any moment; there was no need to take the risk of clashing head-on.

But just when he thought he had shaken the man off, he looked up and saw Yan Jing's figure again.

"Damn it..."

He reshaped his body back into physical form and stared at his opponent with an ugly expression.

He knew he wasn't going to be able to avoid this today.

He had to end the battle quickly.

"Blood Sun King, Fan Li."

Yan Jing smiled.

"Good. I like the strong."

Hearing Yan Jing's words, Fan Li's mind raced.

What did he mean by saying he liked the strong?

Was he from the [Victory] Pathway? Or the [War] Pathway?

Several possibilities instantly sprang into his head.

But in the next second, Yan Jing reached out a hand and lightly pressed it against the air.

Fan Li's pupils shrank violently.

The force contained within that pointing finger instantly crushed the space in front of him, detonating all the air.

The force no longer even had a medium to travel through, yet it still reached exactly where it was meant to go.

Every single robust muscle on Fan Li's body tensed up at this moment, and the Beast Tooth necklace around his neck instantly lit up.

One by one, the bloodstained beast teeth slowly floated into the air.

Fan Li's aura skyrocketed once more as beams of blood-red sunlight rained down from the sky, sinking into his glabella.

His figure began to gradually enlarge like an awakening ancient behemoth. Blood flowed from inside his body toward the surface, clinging to his flesh.

This was his true trump card.

During his battle with the blood-red-haired man just now, he hadn't even considered pulling out his trump card.

But right now, Yan Jing had only pointed a single finger, and the Beast Teeth had subconsciously begun to activate.

"Come!!!"

He let out a low roar as tens of thousands of rays of blood-red sunlight gathered on his arm, and he threw a vicious punch toward Yan Jing.

However...

What should have been a majestic, imposing punch seemed to have met its natural predator. In the crumbling space opposite him, a perfect arc of light appeared, directly suppressing the thousands of rays of sunlight on this side.

That arc of light was the 'outline' of Yan Jing's force.

Compared to the Blood Sun King's punch, which could affect thousands of meters, Yan Jing's outline was like a wall that completely severed the air.

Fan Li looked up. He couldn't see the edges of the arc of light, nor could he gauge the limits of this finger strike.

It was as if an invisible giant stood in the sky, its true form seemingly even larger than the entire Surface World, before extending this single finger.

Sweeping away resistance like smashing dry weeds and rotting wood—a complete crushing without any suspense.

Fan Li spat out a mouthful of blood and was sent flying backward, countless fissures appearing across his perfect, robust muscles.

He walked the path of extremes, but evidently, his opponent's intensity was not something he could compare to.

His opponent was even more extreme.

Strictly speaking, Yan Jing was already in the Demigod Realm.

He simply didn't have a Divine Throne.

Furthermore, paired with the first state of his ascended Fear Stance, the power gained from drinking the Ultimate Strength Potion, and the Divine Throne power of [Physique].

At this moment, his strength had leaped from being the undisputed number one below the Demigod Realm, to becoming an absolutely terrifying existence even among demigods.

It was entirely normal that Fan Li couldn't block it.

Fan Li gritted his teeth. Left with no other choice, he could only do exactly as the blood-red-haired man had done, using the Divine Throne he possessed before his slumber to step into the Demigod Realm.

"Boom!!!"

A pillar of light surged upward.

A few seconds later, Fan Li stepped out of the light pillar, his entire body flickering with a dense, bloody glow.

The muscles all over his body seemed to be coated in a faint fluorescence now. His formerly charred husk faded away, and his burned-away hair grew back.

The Beast Teeth around his neck seemed to have grown a size larger, and every single one pointed downward, piercing directly into his flesh.

Coupled with an even more massive physique and a suffocating aura, he truly looked to possess the bearing of a Deity.

But his face was filled with unwillingness.

He was unwilling to rely on the Divine Throne of a lesser Deity to step into the Demigod Realm; otherwise, he would have done so thousands of years ago.

Fury made the bloody light radiating from him burn even brighter as he looked around, constantly searching for Yan Jing's figure.

But there was nothing.

Yan Jing had disappeared.

Just like how he himself had fled from the blood-red-haired man's side a moment ago.

"Ahhhhh!!!!"

His unwilling fury ultimately transformed into a skyward roar, rumbling like a clap of thunder that echoed for several li in every direction.

It was at this time that the blood-red-haired man arrived belatedly.

He still maintained his mutated form from earlier, except that streaks of tentacles had grown from his body, dancing wildly in the air.

He had chosen to accept the Divine Throne of a Deity named [Devouring Zhi]. It was a Pathway also related to [Blood], only it was no longer that apex existence.

He had originally come to hunt Fan Li down, but right now, looking at Fan Li's current state, his eyes narrowed, and then...

He turned around and fled.

Fan Li had also advanced to the Demigod Realm.

Before Advent Day officially began, choosing to continue clashing head-on against Fan Li was clearly not a good idea.

But Fan Li, whose fury had already rushed to his head, couldn't care less about any of that. He charged straight at the blood-red-haired man; he was going to inflict all the humiliation he had suffered at Yan Jing's hands upon him.

Only in this way could the anger in his heart be quelled.

...

A scene like this was not uncommon in the current Surface World.

Kings from past eras were springing up one after another like bamboo shoots after the rain. Clinging to the foundations they had accumulated over the years, they wanted to prove that even after crossing through eras, they were still the strongest.

Similarly, the hidden sects and thousand-generation illustrious clans of the current era also brought out their respective trump cards.

The reason those monsters had no reputation in this era was not because they were inferior in strength to the ten renowned freaks.

It was simply because they had been hidden away.

They had silently accumulated their strength precisely for this day.

This kind of chaos had turned the entire Surface World into a massive battlefield of free-for-all brawls.

And a list detailing those illustrious figures gradually began to spread as well.