Volume 1, Chapter 121 – Phantasmal Vision

“Rumble—”

A bolt of lightning as thick as an adult’s thigh tore through the dark sky and crashed down from above like divine punishment. Blazing white arcs devoured everyone’s sight as a vast wave of energy swept out in all directions.

This bolt made many of the Earth Fiend Realm martial artists present change expression on the spot. Even among them, there were not many who were sure they could take it head-on without being injured.

Shi Lan stood with her war halberd in hand, staring at the lightning cleaving straight toward the top of her head. A faint purple hue spread through her pupils as the blood and qi in her body boiled. Some strange power buried deep in her bones began slowly seeping out.

At the same time, Shi Lan’s emotions, which had still been relatively calm, churned like boiling oil.

The surrounding heaven and earth spiritual qi began to flow, slowly converging toward Shi Lan, who stood at the center of the arena.

Shi Lan raised the war halberd in her hand, pointing straight at the falling lightning from the sky. Her body did not move at all. The halberd’s aura remained hidden, her presence drawn in to the extreme.

“Is this girl crazy? Does she not want to live?!”

“An ordinary early-stage Earth Fiend Realm martial artist wouldn’t be able to withstand this thunder art from Shen Tianlan. She doesn’t know how high the heavens are or how thick the earth is!”

“Young and hot-blooded, lacking experience after all!”

Seeing that Shi Lan did not dodge this descending bolt but instead meant to take it head-on, cries of shock rose up around them.

Gu Rentong’s face changed slightly. He stepped forward and called out loudly, “Young lady, you must not meet it head-on!”

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The lightning crashed into the halberd’s edge, erupting in a blinding explosion of arcs that flooded the entire arena. In an instant, the whole stage was turned into a sea of lightning.

A hint of surprise flashed through Shen Tianlan’s indifferent gaze. His connection with the lightning was inseparable; he was almost one with this sea of thunder. In his perception, even after hard-taking that bolt, Shi Lan’s aura had not weakened in the slightest.

“Boom—”

The sea of lightning suddenly blew apart and scattered from the arena, slamming into the weeds beside it and igniting a trail of thunderfire.

A figure emerged. When everyone looked over, their breathing stalled.

The girl in the white skirt standing on the arena seemed to have a layer of jade-like luster blooming across her skin, bright as the full moon. Even the harsh lightning that had been so piercing moments ago looked dim by comparison.

A faint purple mist filled the girl’s eyes, revealing no trace of emotion. Her features were already stunning, but under the glow of that jade-like light, they appeared even more flawless and immaculate, like a spotless goddess descending to the mortal world.

What truly left everyone shaken, though, was the phantasmal scene that had appeared behind her, a darkness so deep it seemed to stretch without end.

That phantasmal vision looked as though it had swallowed all surrounding light, plunging the already gloomy sky into even deeper shadow. When people focused their gaze on that scene, all of them felt a moment of dazedness, as if their very minds were being swallowed.

When they came back to themselves, they exchanged looks, each seeing shock in the other’s eyes.

Shen Tianlan glanced at the phantasmal vision behind Shi Lan and frowned in thought.

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This was similar to the so-called “grand momentum” spoken of in legends, yet clearly not quite the same…

Buzz!

While Shen Tianlan was still thinking, Shi Lan’s figure suddenly vanished from where she stood. A dull sonic boom rang by his ear, and all he could see from the corner of his eye was a swath of bone-white cold light.

Shen Tianlan’s eyes did not show the slightest hint of surprise. The lightning coiled around his body exploded outward, turning into thousands of lightning serpents that shot out like feathered arrows.

Shi Lan swept her war halberd sideways, scattering the countless lightning serpents in an instant. The stray arcs that had no time to escape were swallowed directly by the phantasmal vision behind her.

In that single breath of pause, Shen Tianlan’s figure had already slipped back several dozen zhang. He rose into the air again, coming to rest beside the Thunder Extreme Fan wreathed in lightning.

The lightning mark on Shen Tianlan’s forehead flickered more and more violently. Under the flickering glare, none of the onlookers could see his features clearly anymore. All they could make out was a blurred silhouette bathed in thunder.

Divine patterns emerged one after another on the Thunder Extreme Fan’s surface. Between the dense clouds above, lightning gathered and turned into a heavenly thunder pool, a blinding white expanse stretching across the sky.

Yet no matter how dazzling the white light around her became, the space around Shi Lan remained strangely dim. Light struggled to enter within ten zhang of her. Only the jade-like radiance on her body shone like divine light, bright and unwavering.

“Heavenly Thunder Summoning—Thunder Break!”

The lightning-wreathed figure let out a long shout.

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The Thunder Extreme Fan in the air suddenly moved. The thunder pool in the sky poured down, and a blade of lightning wrapped in countless arcs hacked down fiercely. Its edge was razor sharp, the deafening roar of thunder within its body making hearts tremble.

A strange, hard-to-describe sound rippled past, and the phantasmal vision behind Shi Lan seemed to be stirred, becoming even more terrifying. The ten zhang around her turned into a boundless black prison, where one could not see their own fingers. All light was completely devoured.

Shi Lan stomped hard. Though she stood in midair, it was as if her foot landed on solid ground, producing two explosive cracks. With the halberd’s blade as the arrowhead, her body became an arrow loosed from the bowstring, shooting straight toward Shen Tianlan.

Boom!

Shi Lan was like a black arrow, plunging into the sky full of lightning, tearing apart the descending blade of thunder along with the torrent of lightning pouring down from above.

The river of stars in the sky was cut in two by a single black line.

Shen Tianlan raised his palm and clenched his fist. The scattered lightning converged into a hand nearly a hundred zhang across. It then pressed down, gripping Shi Lan within its palm and forcing her toward the phantasmal vision around her.

Everyone around the arena unconsciously held their breath. At this point, both people on the stage—whether Shen Tianlan or Shi Lan—had the strength to fight Earth Fiend Realm martial artists. The way this match was unfolding was far beyond their expectations at the start.

Hao Pojun’s expression had gone blank, his heart lost and unmoored. He suddenly felt as though his peers had left him far behind.

Zhao Jing’an’s earlier gloating was nowhere to be seen; he looked thoroughly shaken.

If Shi Lan had been easily defeated by Shen Tianlan, he could still comfort himself that her earlier victories were just clever tricks. But now, the scene on the arena left no doubt: Shi Lan might never have taken him seriously at all.

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Shi Lan had spirit marrow to replenish her. The lightning swallowed by the phantasmal vision behind her was converted into true qi and poured into her body. Shen Tianlan, meanwhile, had the countless bolts of thunder in the sky as his backing. As a result, the situation on the arena settled into a stalemate.

As time passed, the massive influx of spiritual power kept scouring Shen Tianlan’s body. His already restless aura grew harder to control and began to climb again.

After nearly half a quarter of an hour, Shen Tianlan’s rising aura suddenly halted, then, as if crossing a threshold, exploded to more than ten times its previous strength in an instant.

When everyone sensed the change in his aura, their faces all showed complex expressions.

Shen Tianlan had actually been the first to break into the Earth Fiend Realm…

With a wave of Shen Tianlan’s hand, all the lightning in the sky dispersed at once. The Thunder Extreme Fan in the air quickly shrank, dropped into his palm, and disappeared as he flipped his hand.

Shi Lan looked at Shen Tianlan not far away, her crystal-clear fingers tightening slightly as she sighed inwardly. In the end, her cultivation was still two realms lower than his.

Now that Shen Tianlan had broken into the Earth Fiend Realm, there was no longer any possibility of her winning.

“I concede.”

Shen Tianlan stared at his own palm for a long moment, turning it over a few times, then spoke in an even tone.