Xian Xian's roots were ravaging the taotie, yet it couldn't move at all, thanks to being bound by Archfiend. Facing an enemy that had turned into a wildbeast that regularly ate its prey, Tianming would never hold back.
Xian Xian was all too excited to hear the order. The whole day, it had exerted itself lots and couldn't wait to feast on meat.
"Thanks, Half-daddy!"
Its roots went wild inside the taotie. The two mouths it had used to feed on others were now allowing itself to be fed on in a deliciously ironic turn. Its insides were almost instantly shredded, but there was nothing it could do. It couldn't even so much as cry in pain with its mouths choked off. The best it could muster were gurgles. It rapidly hammered its claws on the ground, shaking the entire battlefield.
Then the roots came bursting out of its eye sockets, popping the eyeballs out before swiftly reaching out for them again to munch on them. At the gruesome sight, Tianming finally understood that real monsters shouldn't be judged by their hides nor appearances. It was a matter of bloodline!
Since the taotie loved to feast, Xian Xian turned the very same nightmare it had inflicted on so many of its victims back on itself. Tianming let go of Archfiend and let Xian Xian have its way with the taotie; it was as good as dead now.
With the impressive advantage Yama had had neutralized, he could now leave the other beasts to his own. Turning back, he saw that Yama was angrily chasing Meow Meow down, as he was unable to reach Tianming. His darkstar ghosteyes qiongqi made a bloody cut on Meow Meow, who would've had its guts spilled had it not run fast enough.
"Are you alright?" Tianming asked.
"I'm fine! I want to bite it to death, don't butt in!" Meow Meow was truly enraged. It ignored its injuries and clashed with the qiongqi once more.
Before Yama could unleash another move, Tianming came straight at him. "It's finally your turn!"
He split his Grand-Orient Sword into two; they glinted magnificently in the snowstorm.
Yama only responded with a roar before charging in with his blade raised, executing a second-origin samsaran battle art, Corpse Soulslaying. The blade was enveloped in piercing ki and turned into a large crescent moon, swooping Tianming's way. Though Yama seemed to have a small build, his blows were filled with power.
All Tianming did as he faced the strike was smirk. At this moment, he was being bathed in too much Omnisentient Will. Even though it wasn't enough for him to make a breakthrough, it had a significant effect on his combat capabilities. "This is the power of the entirety of Archaion!"
Omnisentient Will caused the Grand-Orient Swords in his hand to feel much more hefty and powerful than before. One sword was as heavy as a mountain, and the other was as deep as the sea. The power in his body endlessly surged as he used the Mortal Dao Sword.
His swords seemed to be out of his control. Instead, they seemed to move according to the will of all the sentient beings across Archaion, guiding his hand as he executed the move. Never before had he channeled their will to such heights. By now, Tianming was quite far along the path of a sovereign. Facing the evil force that charged straight at him, he was a picture of calm and nothing else. "The will of all life shall dispel the revenant spirits that block my way!"
The familiar move seemed to pack the power of billions of lives behind it. This was the Archaion Divine Realm that the others thought was weak. This was their rage! Sword ki blasted all over, engulfing man and beast, overcoming their savage nature with Omnisentient Sword Intent and sending Yama into a retreat as his own Corpse Soulslaying was interrupted. He had no choice but to revert his blade back to its Hellgate state and use it as a shield. Even so, the Grand-Orient Sword still shattered the blade into countless pieces.
About a hundred of the fragments pierced into Yama's body, causing him to bleed profusely. That explosive power was seven-tenths a result of Tianming's own power and three-tenths thanks to Omnisentient Will. It was the core of the Primordial God-Emperor's legacy.
Having been forced back, Yama was quite injured. The sight of that caused the entirety of Archaion to cheer with glee. It seemed that the world itself was shaking. Those in the Nonahall Divine Realm, on the other hand, howled in grief and were unable to stop themselves from feeling the hurt. How could the most powerful disciple to appear in the past millennium not be able to take on Tianming? It shouldn't be possible; he was at the fifth-level death phase!
As for their allies, they were all flabbergasted. Countless peoples’ faces were blank and stiff, yet something even worse happened before their eyes: Xian Xian had completely devoured the twinhead darkvoid taotie, even its tongue. Nothing but the outer husk of the beast remained, standing as still as a sculpture and stunning everyone into silence. Even those watching from Archaion were completely flabbergasted by Tianming's display of power.
With Yama wounded and the taotie gone, the balance of power had tipped. How would Yama be able to resist Tianming next? Archaion finally had some real hope for survival. They could definitely imagine Tianming taking the number one spot as their cheers reverberated throughout the entirety of Taiji Peak Lake. "Li Tianming, number one!"
They had finally begun smiling after having suffered for so long. It seemed miraculous, but even that was an understatement. Not even a miracle could have helped them achieve this kind of result! Before the battle even ended, Yama felt himself falling into an endless abyss.
"Yama, what are you waiting for?" cried a voice in dissatisfaction from Nonahall’s section of the audience. It appeared to be one of the ghoul kings. Everyone had only just remembered that the goal they had to achieve no matter what was to obtain the key to the Kilostar Domain by getting the number one title. There was no way they would let Tianming take it from them, for if they lost it, Nonahall's strategy would be completely ruined. It wasn't something their divine realm would be able to accept.
Now, they all turned to Yama and shot him fierce glares. The short, grey-robed youth pulled out the shards of his broken blade and stood up, all bloodied. Looking toward the husk of his taotie, the bloody light faded from his eyes. He seemed broken. "It was my mistake...."
The ravager bloodline had never failed him, and always guaranteed that he would devastate his enemies. Yet Tianming had played him like a fiddle. As he lost his reason, he had a harder and harder time recalling his memories. Usually when he regained consciousness, he would find his enemy dead, but this time his lifebound beast was dead. It was the greatest tragedy! It was the first time that he had ever suffered as a consequence of his bloodline. If not for that, he could've gone to save his taotie when it was in danger with his final trump card. He teared up for the first time in his life as he looked at the corpse, and when he turned back to Tianming, his rage reached a boiling point; but this time, he would fight as himself, not a wild beast.
"Li Tianming, I was too prideful. I thought I’d be able to dominate you with my own abilities. But now it seems I have no choice but to rely on an external power. My pride has cost me dearly!"
"So what?" Tianming stood coldly in the snowy battlefield.
"And now, I’ll bury you alongside my beast!" His voice cracked. The death of his taotie seemed to have driven him mad.
"Tianming, watch out!" the seniors watching from the sidelines cried.
Tianming had been waiting for that the whole time. Hei An had liferot toxin with him, so Yama definitely had something, too.
The grey-eyed youth laughed maniacally as he opened both his arms and looked toward the sky. All of a sudden, a terrifying aura of dread that was ten times more powerful than before spread from his body. Countless strands of black and red aura seemed to emerge from his body, forming countless ghostly fiends that circled him and infused him with great power. Then a blood-red armor appeared on his body; it looked like normal blood that had coagulated into a solid form all around his body. As it formed, countless beasts circled around his body before rising protectively around his head. The feeling he gave off was far more ferocious than the ravager bloodline.
"Sanguine Ferocity!" someone cried from the audience.
Tianming wasn't sure what it was, but he saw fifteen tribulation patterns on the armor. That was the maximum number of tribulation patterns an artifact could have, and it was no doubt among the strongest tribulation artifacts that ever existed. Beyond that, it would be on the level of divine artifacts. Tianming's Grand-Orient Sword seemed to be a divine artifact, but it hadn't been fully activated yet. Not to mention, most of the benefits it afforded were realized within Tianming's own body. However, this armor was an external force that boosted Yama's potential to the limits.
"Sanguine Ferocity was made using the blood essence of a seventh-order tribulation beast. It's among the top ten most powerful artifacts on the continent! To think that they’d let a disciple use it to win the Number One Summit...."
"Did anyone see how they undid all the limits on the armor? Yama was never meant to be able to control that kind of power! He'll definitely end up injured after using it! Since it isn’t Yama's own power, can’t this be considered a violation of the rules?"
"That is hard to say. They could just claim that Yama was the one who used Sanguine Ferocity without any limits."
"But his body's about to implode...."
"What we say doesn't matter anyway. Tianming’s in danger!"
"Sect Master Xuanyuan isn't here. I wonder if the other two sect masters will step in to save him?"
The appearance of Sanguine Ferocity caused a huge commotion. Countless beasts stampeded on Yama's body, seemingly giving him a boost ten thousand times stronger than his ravager bloodline. However, this time he was still conscious and filled to the brim with hate for his devoured beast. Wielding his blade, he truly seemed like an incarnation of his namesake, the King of Hell and Judge of the Living Dead himself. "Li Tianming?"
"What's up?"
"I want to kill you and turn you into mincemeat, then eat you up!" he roared like countless beasts.
"Well? Do you actually bite or do you only know how to bark?" Tianming beckoned for him to come with a fingertip.