Desolate Devouring Art

Chapter 464 - Divine Dragon Sword

Li Xiaohai ignored Gu Yu, considering him insignificant. Liu Wuxie, however, was left with no escape from the overwhelming force of the astral river power. Desperate, he summoned all his strength and brought down the Heretic Blade with everything he had.

Liu Wuxie's true essence formed into a divine elephant. This heavenly phase power couldn't be underestimated, even though it wasn't as strong as the astral river power.

A terrifying wave erupted from the impact, sending rocks and sand flying as Liu Wuxie was violently thrown backward. The force was so immense that it caused him to cough up blood; his internal organs nearly shattered if not for the protection of the Suppression Steles. He was flung a thousand meters back, crashing to the ground with his clothes soaked in blood.

In just one exchange, Liu Wuxie had suffered severe injuries. The gap between them was impossible to bridge with just the power of his true essence.

"Liu Wuxie, it's futile. Stop struggling—you can’t escape." Li Xiaohai's figure flashed and appeared before Liu Wuxie with his palm descending.

“Primordial Astral Fist!” Liu Wuxie stood up and unleashed his fist technique. The powerful force of astral energy was much stronger than his true essence, and it couldn't be underestimated even if it wasn't comparable to astral river power.

"This is interesting. You comprehended dao technique at such a young age before reaching the Astral River Realm!" Li Xiaohai became increasingly curious about Liu Wuxie, wanting to extract his memories and see what was stored inside his brain.

With a surge of power ten times greater than before, Liu Wuxie let out a ferocious roar, unleashing the full force of his attack against Li Xiaohai's overwhelming astral river power. The ancient star descended with devastating might, causing explosions that reverberated through the surroundings.

Cracks spiderwebbed across the sky, rapidly spreading in all directions as the very fabric of space shattered. From these spatial rifts, an invisible black wind began to seep out—a death wind, capable of turning anything it touched to ashes. Even cultivators had to be wary, as the death wind was a lethal force, reducing ordinary humans to dust in an instant.

As a cultivator, Liu Wuxie was no stranger to the death wind. He knew that tearing apart space and traversing it was a feat reserved for those who had reached the True Profound Realm.

A vast portion of Liu Wuxie's clothes vanished, and he staggered as the astral energy from the ancient star grew stronger.

A hint of solemnness flashed in Li Xiaohai’s eyes. He couldn't believe someone in the first level the Heavenly Phase Realm could resist his astral energy.

The energy from Primordial Astral Fist and astral river power clashed like two ribbons in the air. The force of their clash was so immense that it was visible from thousands of miles away, drawing the attention of cultivators far and wide.

The battle of cultivators in the Astral River Realm was highly destructive, and even the cultivators in the city were alarmed and began to rush over.

Gu Yu continued to set up things that no one could comprehend. It was neither a spiritual array nor poison. He calmly circled a radius of a few thousand meters in the battlefield before stopping beneath a large tree.

Along with a loud explosion, the ancient star manifested by Liu Wuxie's Primordial Astral Fist exploded, turning into energy streams that swept in all directions.

This was the first time the ancient star manifested by the Primordial Astral Fist was reduced to dust. This was the same Primordial Astral Fist that had helped Liu Wuxie defeat all his opponents without exception since mastering it.

Today, the astral river power crushed the Primordial Astral Fist without resistance. It became evident that, while Liu Wuxie’s martial and dao techniques were extraordinary, the gap in their cultivation levels was too vast to bridge. Although Liu Wuxie’s strength was comparable to the Astral River Realm, it didn't change the fact that he was still in the Heavenly Phase Realm.

"Liu Wuxie, stop struggling and surrender obediently!" Li Xiaohai's fury surged. It was humiliating that someone of his stature in the Astral River Realm had failed twice to subdue a mere Heavenly Phase cultivator. If word of this spread, his reputation on the Blood Sea Abyssal Island would be tarnished beyond repair.

Worse yet, more people were closing in on the battlefield. If the experts from the two major forces arrived, the spoils of this fight might slip from his grasp.

But for some reason, those who approached couldn't enter the center of the battlefield because an invisible force blocked them. This was because of a spiritual array that Gu Yu had set up. However, the spiritual array set up by Gu Yu wasn't ordinary because it harnessed the spirit of heaven and earth to form a barrier, preventing anyone from approaching the battlefield and interfering with the fight.

Spiritual arrays were divided into variations, such as the array tower or spirit formations like the barrier. If the classification was broken down further, spiritual arrays were meant for restrictions and blacksmithing.

They were all classified as spiritual arrays, just like martial techniques, such as blade, sword, spear, fist, and palm techniques, which had many branches.

Few in the Southern Province were proficient in spirit formations because Liu Wuxie had yet to see who could set up a spirit formation.

Spirit formations didn't require ordinary materials because they harnessed the essence from spiritual objects of heaven and earth to fuse into the array.

The downside was also obvious: Spirit formations didn't possess any offensive power, and it was difficult to kill others because they mainly focused on defenses.

In ancient times, the strength of spiritual arrays surpassed the martial path because there were profound, witch, and demonic arrays...but they had been long lost.

With no outside interference, Liu Wuxie could focus on the battle. As long as he could kill Li Xiaohai and escape into the underground world with Gu Yu, no one could find them. Relying on Ghost Eye, they could avoid dangerous areas in advance.

The Fatality Blade Art had failed to kill Li Xiaohai, the Primordial Astral Fist had been overpowered, and there was no use in continuing with Frost Finger. With few options left, Liu Wuxie could only turn to the Soul Spear and the Earth Binding Chains.

Those two were his trump cards, and he didn't dare to use them lightly. The Feather Emperor had told him that using the Earth Binding Chains required powerful soul energy or it would drain all of his soul energy.

If his soul sea were utterly drained, he would enter a state of false death. A strange mark appeared with a swipe of his right hand, and this was an immortal rune.

For safety reasons, Liu Wuxie planned to inscribe an immortal rune and paired it with his martial technique to inflict heavy injuries on Li Xiaohai before using Soul Spear and the Earth Binding Chains for a slim chance of victory.

Li Xiaohai's face changed the moment Liu Wuxie inscribed the immortal rune.

"What are you inscribing?" Li Xiaohai couldn't comprehend the immortal rune with his cultivation. However, he shuddered involuntarily the moment it appeared, with a suffocating power that filled the sky.

Heaven and earth couldn't bear the existence of an immortal rune and began to collapse because the power of an immortal rune could quickly destroy this world.

The Primordial Astral Fist descended once more, and Liu Wuxie merged the immortal rune into his fist technique.

The sky changed with the entire Blood Sea Abyssal Island shaking, resulting in tidal changes and seawater crashing into the land. The seawater consumed many places, and countless sea demons emerged from the sea to watch this battle.

Many sea demons recognized Liu Wuxie at a glance because they had been investigating his whereabouts for days and didn't expect to find him there.

Li Xiaohai's expression shifted as the power of Liu Wuxie's punch surged, hundreds of times stronger than before. The Primordial Astral Fist, now more formidable than ever, seemed almost unimaginable.

The cultivators standing a thousand meters away were deeply captivated by this scene.

"Did you all see what he inscribed?" Many cultivators in the low levels of the Astral River Realm gathered in the surroundings to discuss among themselves.

If they could grasp this spiritual rune, they would be confident in dominating the Blood Sea Abyssal Island. After all, just a strand of this rune could amplify a martial technique a hundredfold, and this was enough for them to take any risks.

Cultivators in the high levels of the Heavenly Phase Realm were equally shocked and wanted to charge over to have a share of Liu Wuxie's treasures. Everyone was curious about Liu Wuxie's secrets, which made him so powerful.

"I didn't see clearly. But it should be a rare spiritual rune that can enhance the power of martial techniques," a few elders speculated, and it was normal for them not to recognize it because they hadn't seen an immortal rune before.

Immortal runes could only be inscribed by immortals, and they were mere mortals.

Everyone had their opinion, and some claimed it to be a demonic rune that didn't belong to humans. But no one guessed it to be an immortal rune because most people didn't even know what ‘immortal’ meant.

Liu Wuxie had once explained what immortal meant during the Battle of Hundred Nations, which had caused a resonance from heaven and earth.

Gu Yu also attacked when the Primordial Astral Fist was formed. With a bizarre energy fluctuation, a dragon's roar echoed as the ancient longsword in Gu Yu's hand transformed into a purple sky dragon, coiling in the sky.

This scene shocked everyone even further because no one had expected such a simple-looking longsword to contain the divine dragon's bloodline.

The sword was forged with the bones of true dragons and soaked in dragon blood. Gu Yu released the restriction on the ancient sword, unleashing full power.

Liu Wuxie's expression shifted dramatically, but it was too late to stop Gu Yu. In that moment, he realized why Senior Gu had never been concerned about Gu Yu's safety. The truth was startling—Gu Yu had a divine dragon protecting him all along.

After all, even cultivators in the high levels of the Astral River Realm couldn't kill Gu Yu if they came, and the sword would activate its protective ability to help Gu Yu escape the Blood Sea Abyssal Island in case of danger.

"That's a divine dragon sword!" The crowd erupted in chaos. Moments ago, they had been fixated on the immortal rune Liu Wuxie had inscribed, but now their attention had shifted entirely to the divine dragon in the sky, their eyes nearly bulging in disbelief.

Liu Wuxie's appearance had already left everyone speechless, but the revelation of Gu Yu’s true power was even more shocking.

As the sword was activated, something deep beneath the Blood Sea Abyssal Island began to stir, causing the entire island to tremble as if an earthquake had struck. It was as if the divine dragon’s summoning had triggered something buried within the island.

Engrossed in the battle, no one noticed the earthquake's significance. It lasted a full minute before subsiding, but it went largely unnoticed, as tremors had recently become a common occurrence on the island.

The two-pronged attack placed Li Xiaohai in a crisis because the immortal rune empowered the Primordial Astral Fist, and the power of Gu Yu's sword was comparable to a cultivator in the Astral River Realm.

"Damn it! Damn it all!" Li Xiaohai roared in frustration. He hadn’t anticipated facing such formidable opponents—Liu Wuxie alone was already a challenge, but now Gu Yu had proven to be equally powerful.

The sky dragon roared and circled the sky before coiling around Li Xiaohai to restrict his movement.

"Big Brother Liu, now!" Gu Yu formed seals with both hands but couldn't hold out much longer. His limit was three breaths at most before the dragon's power would be exhausted.

It could only last three breaths because he had used a secret technique to lift the restriction on the sword.

“Primordial Astral Fist, crush!” Liu Wuxie went all out, clasping his hands together with his attack descending.