At Ye Tianxie’s low call, that stroke — endless sacred power in it, the blade turned pure white — drove hard into the completely locked Dark Nether Ghost King as he moved straight forward… The enormous blade went in at the demon’s back and came out through his chest.
This stroke did not set off the disastrous burst of energy the earlier ones had. Instead, after a brief soundless stillness, the light that had been wrapped around the holy sword vanished all at once, and then, as if something enormous had seized and torn at it, poured wildly into the Dark Nether Ghost King’s body — and blew apart inside him with a roar, setting off a great explosion of sacred force…
“Aaah…”
The highest state of light’s power — sacred power — is the natural enemy that darkness fears most. Sacred power that pours into a body and then blows apart inside it is no different in kind from a ball of flame exploding inside a moth…
-6000000!!
That scream out of the Dark Nether Ghost King was beyond any question the most agonized of his life. The explosion of sacred power was centered on his own body, so it did not blast him away; he fell instead in front of Ye Tianxie and rolled there, howling, as the sacred power left in him ate away at him. At the same time a ring of dim white light settled over his body — from Sword of Heaven, the holy seal that locks away every power of the dark element!
Unable to use dark power, the Dark Nether Ghost King might as well have had his hands and feet cut off. There would never be another chance to fight back, and now even flight was gone… because he could no longer use Blink either. Ye Tianxie stepped forward, and the attacks came without mercy.
A cleaving stroke… a level stroke… Breakthrough Sword… Gale and Divine Thunder… God-Breaking Slash… God-Defying Slash…
-420000, -410000, -1600000, -1800000, -1720000, -1720000…
Damage figures, each more frightening than the last, rose without a break above the Dark Nether Ghost King’s head, and brought screams out of him fit for a fiend in hell. His body was shocked back, knocked down, flicked into the air, smashed to the ground, over and over… One of the Eight Demon Kings, and here he was being trampled and worked over at will, like a rubber ball, by what Ye Tianxie now was.
And through all that humiliation, his fear still ran far ahead of his shame and his rage. What came to mind was not the counterattack of a cornered animal but the same wish to get away at any cost… The holy sword made him feel something too terrible to bear… terrible enough that his mind had broken already.
The holy seal that came with Sword of Heaven lasted ten seconds and finally faded, and the Dark Nether Ghost King could use dark power again at last. Without hesitating he ran for the exit of the Phantom Beast Ruins… but in front of a holy sword born to judge demons, what hope did he have of escape? He had gotten no more than a hundred meters when another shaft of white light from the holy sword fixed his body in place completely, and Ye Tianxie, who had just had the gap opened on him, charged in again. The second stage of Demon-Severing Kill Barrier slammed home and blasted him high into the air…
-2700000!
The Dark Nether Ghost King’s body flew up at a slant, punching clean through the earth overhead. Ye Tianxie raised his head slightly and drew the blade back, and under his lowering gaze a ring of crimson flame suddenly caught along the holy sword.
The flame’s color was no different from ordinary fire, but strangely, the burning blade gave off no trace of the heat it should have — as if it were only a layer of unreal red light.
“Go… Red Lotus God-Breaking Kill!!”
At Ye Tianxie’s low roar, the holy sword with red flame coiling around it went screaming off in the direction the Dark Nether Ghost King had been knocked…
Outside the Phantom Beast Ruins.
The blue-haired man and the Blue Soul had tried again and again, and failed every time in the end. Their power was enough to crack this barrier, but there was no way at all to open even a brief hole wide enough for one person.
Taking his hand off that transparent barrier once more, the blue-haired man was silent a moment, then turned and said with a shake of his head, “Blue Soul, let’s go. The nature of this barrier’s power settles it — there is no opening it. I understand now why Orange Fang could get through it, when its power is not half of yours.”
“I understand as well. Orange Fang’s power is not strong enough to break this shield open. But it is a shield of the magic property, and it must have been left behind by one or more extremely powerful Magic Gods. And Orange Fang’s own particular power is the devouring of magic. Orange Fang cannot shatter a shield like this, but it can devour a gap in one without the least trouble — the same way Blood Feather can devour life easily, ignoring every defense there is.” The Blue Soul spoke slowly, looking level at the blue-haired man. It had a wolf’s body, but its voice was no different at all from a human’s.
The blue-haired man nodded and said coldly, “Let’s go.”
BOOM…
Just as the blue-haired man took his first step, the ground shuddered violently. His brows drew hard together and he turned in an instant, looking toward the Phantom Beast Ruins.
BOOM…
BOOM…
BOOM!!
The ground was trembling. Shock began to come through on the blue-haired man’s face, which almost never showed a ripple of feeling. He frowned, and after a brief silence said in a low voice, “That is a powerful force.”
“Someone is fighting in there… and it is a collision of terribly powerful forces… Wait. That power does not belong to Orange Fang, and it could not possibly put out anything this strong… What is in there?” Deep shock showed at the same time in the Blue Soul’s wolf eyes. The number of things on the whole Lost Continent with power at this level could be counted on one hand… Perhaps only the three Holy Annihilation Beasts, hanging at the top of the Lost Continent’s Beast Ranking, whose names are heard and whose tracks are never seen, could manage it. Could it be…
BOOM!
BANG!!
Crack…
The ground inside the barrier began to break apart. Under the shock of that power the Phantom Beast Ruins heaved and caved in, and backwash after backwash of overwhelming force broke up through the earth and struck the transparent barrier around the ruins. It was that barrier’s protection that kept the ground outside from being caught in it — otherwise force at this level would easily have reached the City of Heaven’s Sun, five kilometers away.
And it was the barrier, likewise, that kept them from making out what kind of power it was, though they could feel how extreme it was. Otherwise they would have felt the demonic energy in it the moment it started.
BOOM!!!!
After a long heaving of the ground, the Phantom Beast Ruins finally caved in where they could see it. A pitch-black shape broke up out of the earth and shot straight into the sky with a scream of pure agony, slammed hard against the barrier overhead, and dropped viciously back down… And just then, in the middle of that fall, an enormous sword burning with crimson flame, so large it hurt to look at, shot up from below like a red arrow, leaving a line of fire everywhere it passed. It drove clean through that black shape, then turned into a shaft of sacred light and vanished… back into Ye Tianxie’s hand.
-2800000!
-100000, -100000, -100000, -100000…
The Dark Nether Ghost King’s body fell at the barrier’s edge, with the fire of heaven burning on him without mercy and bringing up a damage figure of 100,000 every second. And it would last a full thirty seconds. The health it burned away was the lesser part of it; his body rolled on the ground in agony and he shrieked, because sacred flame hurt him beyond any counting more than ordinary fire would have.
The holy sword… the sword no one of the Demon race can ever touch.
“The Dark Nether Ghost King!!” The quiet Blue Soul let out a shout of shock. It was one of the seven Fate Cores — how could it not know him?
Any one of the Eight Demon Kings has terrible ability, standing far above the Twelve Sages, every one of whom is of Divine Mystery strength… Eight demons standing close to Holy Annihilation grade — if Goddess Xiyao and the Hour of Fate had not both appeared, what could have stopped them?
Three years ago the Eight Demon Kings all escaped, and now the Blue Soul was seeing one of them again… but the Dark Nether Ghost King, powerful beyond all measure, was showing it a face this wretched… Who on earth had the power to reduce him to this?
BOOM!!
The ground blew open, and a body nearly five meters tall leapt up onto the surface, gripping that sacred greatsword, endless pressure pouring off it. He came on with heavy steps, his gaze locked on the Dark Nether Ghost King, and brought a leaping cleave down onto him.
The earth broke. A vicious trench spread out from under Ye Tianxie’s feet and ran all the way to the inner edge of the barrier before it stopped. Then the holy sword came up high again, and blow after blow, each heavier than the last, came down on a Dark Nether Ghost King who could not get off the ground at all under the fire of heaven and the sword’s pressure…
-420000, -1100000, -1780000…
Those vast damage figures, one after another, hurt to look at.
The blue-haired man had gone completely still. He watched with narrowed eyes as that tall man worked the powerful Ghost King over, searching his mind for any memory of the man. Power this overwhelming, enough beyond question to look down on the world and stand undefeated against anything — how could the Lost Continent not have a name for a man like that?
“The Holy Sword War God… Calonandis!” Beside him the Blue Soul cried the name out in its shock, and then began slowly to explain. “Ten thousand years ago the Demon God Lixiao woke for the first time, and its strength was simply beyond matching. In that age the strongest power on the Lost Continent was gathered in the strongest race, the Phantom Beast race. The people of the Phantom Beast race are born with a strange power: they can transform into beasts, and hold the abilities of those beasts. A Phantom Beast with lesser ability can transform into a lesser beast; one with greater ability can transform into a greater beast… But the highest form of the race’s power is not transforming into a beast. It is the Phantom God… transforming into a supreme divine spirit.”
“The Phantom Beast race’s history is beyond long, and in the year the Demon God Lixiao woke, four people in all had gained the ability of the Phantom God in its entire history. Those four also gained eternal life, and after long enough in Phantom God Transformation they could hold the form naturally… until they could hold nothing else, and could no longer return to what they had been. And so they became the Lost Continent’s four strongest divine spirits, and at the race’s bidding they guarded its four directions, east, south, west and north. And this is the one who guarded the south in those days, who held the title of Holy Sword War God, who came from the far west — Calonandis. The sword in his hand is a Holy Annihilation sword named ‘Elsidion,’ bestowed by Goddess Xiyao in that age, holding the sacred power that counters every dark and evil power there is. That is why the Dark Nether Ghost King is in such a wretched state in front of him.”
“The Holy Sword War God… why have I never heard his name before?” The blue-haired man watched the tall man inside the barrier swinging that greatsword and passing judgment on the Dark Nether Ghost King. He frowned.
“Because he is dead… he died ten thousand years ago.”
As it said this, deep shock showed in the Blue Soul’s eyes, too plain to hide.
“Ten thousand years ago, to seal the Demon God Lixiao, the whole Phantom Beast race went out and held the Demon race’s armies down so hard that they could not advance half a step into human land. But in the end the Demon God Lixiao was simply too strong… By the time the four divine spirits finally came back from the far distance, the Phantom Beast race had been slaughtered to nothing — wiped out, you could say. In grief and fury the four divine spirits gathered their power and built the ‘Heaven-Parting Array,’ which could seal anything at all, and sealed the Demon God Lixiao inside it. They turned their own bodies and lives into the east, west, south and north array-souls of the array, sealing Lixiao completely, and then sank together into the Western Ocean… and there has been no trace of them since.”
“Dead? Then this man…”
The blue wolf still could not put down the deep shock inside it, and its voice carried a kind of daze. “The Holy Sword War God is indeed dead. He and the ‘Annihilation Asura,’ whose heaven-given calling was destruction, the ‘Azure Demon Emperor,’ whose calling was judgment, and the ‘Abyss Knight,’ whose calling was guarding, all had body and spirit scatter on the same day and became the array-souls of the Heaven-Parting Array, and could never appear again… But this man’s shape, his power, and the holy sword in his hand… all of it is exactly as I remember it… I don’t know what has happened either…”
The blue-haired man half closed his eyes, looking out at the land ahead, wrecked beyond recognition by those terrible attacks, then lowered his gaze and said slowly, “This is the Phantom Beast Ruins. The story says there is a ‘Holy Mark’ left behind here from the time the Phantom Beast race was destroyed, and that so long as the ‘Holy Mark’ remains, the Phantom Beast race is not truly destroyed…”
“Master, do you mean…”
“We did not come here for nothing this time. That Holy Sword War God ought to be someone who broke into the barrier the same way and took on the power of the Holy Mark out of the old stories, and transformed… If the Holy Sword War God is truly dead, then that is the only possibility left.”
BOOM!!!!
Ye Tianxie’s attacks ran for thirty seconds, and heaven’s fire finally stopped burning. A cruel, cold smile came onto his face again. The holy sword swept out, and another Red Lotus God-Breaking Kill shot away trailing a crimson scar of fire, drove clean through the Dark Nether Ghost King’s body, and pulled him once more into crimson flame…
From the transformation into the Holy Sword War God Calonandis until now, one minute had passed, and in that one minute Ye Tianxie had done the Dark Nether Ghost King a frightening total of over eighty million damage…
(End of Chapter 245)