"Li Tianming, you really are brave to let me in. Once I kill you, your whole army will fall! I wonder if you'll be able to escape this time!" Jiang Wuxin's face was covered in blood, but he smiled as though he didn’t have a care in the world. The black sword in his hand had been stained by blood as its seven tribulation patterns glowed and swam around it. It was called the Skywolfsbane.
"That's beyond your capabilities." Tianming was wielding both his swords. Since the last time he had clashed with the Hexapath disciple, Jiang Wuxin had broken through once more. But Tianming had no other choice than to face Jiang Wuxin, or the latter would pursue him to the ends of the world. Even if all he could do was hold him back, that would still relieve a huge pressure on Xuanyuan Yucheng and the rest. That would be the limit of what he could do in this battle, and the rest would be left to fate.
"Hehe!" Jiang Wuxin began snickering all of a sudden as blood trailed into his eyes.
Tianming noticed something different about him. It had taken a while, but it finally occurred to him that Jiang Wuxin should be blind. After all, didn't he boast about practicing his sword blindfolded? Yet the person before him now had complete eyes, though each of them had two irises. They were distinct, rather than fused, making it look really eerie. Even Tianming only had three eyes himself, while Jiang Wuxin had 'four'.
"Little Yu, Little Yin, I’ll be sending him to hell today. Don't worry, I'll make sure to execute him in front of the whole audience! The whole continent!" His killing intent swelled like a mad demon's in the chaotic battlefield as he stood on the back of his sunscourge fiendwolf, his blood dripping onto it. "Li Tianming, this is the first time I'm showing my Fiendgodmorphize. I’ll turn into the incarnation of the god of fiends. You should be honored to be sent to hell this way!"
All of a sudden, his body began morphing. He and his wolf turned into black balls of light before fusing together.
"I know the Heptastar Aerial Sect's starbeasts can fuse, but Jiang Wuxin is fusing with his lifebound beast! A man-beast fusion?" Tianming was utterly shocked. He hadn't heard of any similar abilities, aside from the Infernal Race Clan, but they didn't just fuse with their beasts during combat. Though he wasn't sure if his seniors had seen anything similar, he could tell from the flabbergasted looks on the faces of the other disciples that this definitely wasn't normal.
"What's going on?" many asked.
"A beastmaster is fusing with a beast?"
What kind of background did Jiang Wuxin have for him to have such a mystical ability? As they watched, the two black balls of light overlaid each other and became one. When the light finally died out, a black-haired werewolf was all that remained in front of Tianming. He was three meters in height, much taller than Jiang Wuxin had originally been, but still incomparably small compared to the Sunscourge Fiendwolf. What was terrifying was the hair that had grown all over his body, not to mention the wolf’s head with two eyes and four irises. His hands were now claws, but that didn't seem to affect his ability to hold his sword at all. Even Skywolfsbane seemed to have doubled in size. Jiang Wuxin now contained the explosive force of both man and beast.
Tianming wasn't aware of it, but Jiang Wuxin's transformation had shocked the entire continent and attracted lots of curious stares. He knew that he definitely shouldn't take Jiang Wuxin lightly now, especially with how determined the latter was to kill him.
"Are you afraid?!" he said in a rough, bestial growl.
Tianming immediately calmed himself; he had seen much throughout his life, and wouldn't be that easily taken aback. Though they were in a hopeless, passive situation, it was no excuse to stop fighting! If they didn't resist at all, they would die for sure.
"Let's go!" Tianming's cry caused Xian Xian to spread its main body across the battlefield. Ying Huo, Meow Meow, and Lan Huang were all by his side, facing his archnemesis together with him. Even the Prime Tower was being controlled by the soul servant, appearing above his head and expanding to its maximum size.
"Hehehehe!" Jiang Wuxin howled as he thrust his sword, immediately closing the distance with Tianming using the formless sword art. Despite the number of irises he had, he closed his eyes when he fought, utilizing his mind's eye and rendering him immune to Tianming's ocular arts. Other peoples’ fighting capabilities would be hampered by a lack of vision, but his became stronger. His moves were formless, for forms he did not see. His void mind state, his empty heart state, was the culmination of his mind's eye techniques. If even he himself couldn't perceive the form of his moves, how could his opponent?
The sword art he truly used was a second-origin samsaran art like Tianming's Eight Desolation Fienddragon Whip, called Heartslayer. Taught by the Hexapath Swordfiend himself, it was a technique that extinguished the heart and mind. The first move: Heartgorge. Shadowy forms of his sword manifested as his sword intent attempted to corrode Tianming’s heart. The sword stance was only the surface of the technique, while his sword intent was guided by his will. It was extremely hard to block.
His fused beast form was indeed terrifying and unprecedented, but Tianming had many lifebound beasts. Before Jiang Wuxin had even arrived, Tianming's beasts began barraging him. Ying Huo and Meow Meow each took a flank, sending sparks of flame and lightning at him that turned into a vortex of flame and electricity that covered the entire battlefield. Ying Huo kept using Skyscorch Featherblast from beside Jiang Wuxin. However, flaming swirls appeared all over his body with great suction power, preventing the feathers from piercing it. It seemed that Jiang Wuxin could also use beast abilities.
Lan Huang roared with its Primordial Soundwave and that seemed to disorient Jiang Wuxin for a moment, causing him to lose his hearing and his sword stance to waver for a moment. He swatted away Lan Huang's charge with his sword and turned to Tianming. "Die!" he roared.
Then Xian Xian's Radiant Vines came, but they couldn't stop him in its tracks. His power as a fifth-level life samsaran was much higher than many of his seniors'. His current form made the pride in the disciples of his sect swell. One day, he would become yet another Hexapath Swordfiend and rock the world. At the very least, he was now among the top three strongest disciples of the continent.
Tianming, however, refused to be a sitting duck and had launched his own attack as his beasts were intercepting their foe. A thousand strands of tribulation sword ki appeared in his body. There was another technique he hadn't used for a long while: the Imperealm Sword Formation. The ungodly power of the Grand-Orient Sword burst forth once more. With his current level of power, the range of his formation covered the entire mountain!
Countless threads of black and gold sword ki surged around him, making it his personal battlefield. Surrounded by tribulation sword ki, and that from the formation, his white hair fluttered from the turbulence. Now, he belonged to the Archaion Divine Realm. He knew that many in the realm were desperately hoping that he would survive.
All of a sudden, this microcosm of a battlefield began flooding with Omnisentient Will that poured into his own Imperial Will. The disciples of the sect who were watching through Skyeye Formations had placed their pride and hopes on him, wishing desperately for him to win. The Human Branch alone had more than three hundred thousand disciples, which in turn produced quite a huge amount of Omnisentient Will. Tianming had known all along that ever since he got the legacy of the Primordial God-Emperor, he was someone who made huge gains during wartime, and this was a war like no other. A sovereign was chosen by the will of the sentient beings he ruled over, and currently, their Omnisentient Will was flooding into him as they wished for him to overturn his fate.
"Even though Archaion isn’t as impressive as it was in the days of yore, we will allow nobody to cause trouble in our turf!" Hexapath Samsara Sword, Mortal Dao Sword. This was a move that contained the essence of Omnisentient Will. Even though Tianming's realm was much lower than Jiang Wuxin's, his sword intent surpassed the Hexapath disciple’s! This was the fundamental difference between them—the root of their will! Tianming was one who walked the grand and bright path, while Jiang Wuxin was a dastardly fiendgod. It was no contest of good and evil, only whose will was stronger!
As he struck, the Prime Tower came crashing down with the force of an entire mountain, causing Jiang Wuxin to have no choice but to block it. The next instant, the tips of the gold Grand-Orient Sword and Skywolfsbane clashed, letting out a mind-numbing hum.
People watched as Tianming was sent flying and crashed into a mountain of metal. In terms of the power behind his sword, he couldn't match up. However, he had other ways to make up for it; before Jiang Wuxin could follow up with another attack, the Prime Tower rammed into his head, causing him to bleed. Ying Huo also used the Mortal Dao Sword from behind him, stabbing him near his scapula and causing blood to spill.
"You're so hard!" Ying Huo chirped in shock. It had thought that its thrust would take Jiang Wuxin’s whole arm off, not just leave a bloody hole. Fiendgodmorphize had truly strengthened his body to a terrifying degree. That was why Tianming hadn’t been able to resist his sword blow.
Though Jiang Wuxin had won out in their first bout, Tianming's lifebound beasts were giving him a run for his money. He had narrowly avoided many dangerous blows and cut off countless vines from the Radix World Tree before he could get back up and focus on Tianming once more. He saw the blood that flowed from the corner of Tianming's mouth and right hand. His Ancient Deepstar Godbody seemed torn up.
"One more time and you'll be done for."
"I beg to differ. You're the one who’ll be out cold." Tianming waved, causing his four lifebound beasts to reenter his lifebound space. What was he trying to achieve by decreasing his own fighting prowess?
