Chapter Ninety-Four: Fierce Battle

Yitian stood face-to-face with the Demon Serpent King.

From the Demon Serpent King, he felt an unimaginable sense of danger, one that could threaten his very life.

The Demon Serpent King’s eyes were icy to the bone.

He looked at Yitian, slowly raised his right hand, and suddenly struck. A massive true essence hand, dozens of yards across, appeared in the air. The hundred-yard stretch of space before it shattered in an instant, and a chill of utter frost and darkness swept over everything.

Even before that palm had fallen, Yitian’s body felt an aching cold that pierced to the marrow, stirring both flesh and soul.

“Break!”

Brilliant light erupted all over Yitian’s body, blazing like the sun, and a terrifying heat surged outward.

He drove a palm strike forward.

Boom.

A heaven-shaking explosion suddenly burst across the sky.

A storm of violent force swept in all directions, and one blast after another of destruction followed. Within a radius of two to three hundred yards, the void showed signs of collapse, chaotic and shattered beyond measure.

Yitian was sent flying backward hundreds of yards.

In that clash with the Demon Serpent King, he had gained no advantage, though neither had he been suppressed.

Clearly, Yitian’s blazing true essence was stronger than his opponent’s. Only then could he stand on equal footing against that strike from the Demon Serpent King, a cultivator at the origin-law realm.

The Demon Serpent King also realized that Yitian’s cultivation art was of a higher grade than the Dark Yin Profound Art he himself practiced, or else Yitian could not have withstood a casual blow from an origin-law expert without the slightest sign of being overwhelmed.

A flash of cold light passed through the Demon Serpent King’s eyes, and for the first time, he truly wanted Yitian dead.

He was consumed by jealousy.

The art Yitian cultivated was clearly far superior to his Dark Yin Profound Art.

One had to know that his Dark Yin Profound Art was already a top-grade earth-tier technique; among those of the same rank, it was immensely powerful.

“Kill him!”

The Demon Serpent King’s envy and hatred surged violently. He abruptly unleashed a heaven-rending aura, and a terrifying chill spread out, frosting the entire world.

With a sharp hiss, he shot forward hundreds of yards in an instant and appeared before Yitian. He sent out a Dark Yin Nether Palm without the slightest grand display, looking plain and ordinary.

Yet Yitian sensed the palm’s terror; it was even more dangerous than the previous strike.

“Fight!”

Yitian cried out, and a fierce battle spirit rose within him. He met it head-on, his fist gathering an intensely condensed blaze of true essence. That boundless force seemed to turn into a small sun as he unleashed this mighty blow.

Boom!

The Dark Yin Nether Palm collided with Yitian’s fist.

The sun-like true essence burst apart with a thunderous crash, and the vast majority of it was silently extinguished by the Dark Yin Nether Palm.

The Demon Serpent King’s palm was also shattered by Yitian.

In an instant, the two were locked in a fierce battle. Fist-force, palm seals, and more collided again and again; the void was repeatedly torn apart, sending terrifying ripples outward in every direction.

On the ground below, every strike that landed immediately blasted open great pits and ripped out deep trenches.

Yitian and the Demon Serpent King both shone with boundless radiance, their origin aura manifesting like two war gods.

Yitian’s origin aura was blazingly red, like a wheel of divine fire, while the Demon Serpent King’s was pitch-black, icy, and bitterly cold. Their repeated clashes were terrifying beyond measure.

The Demon Serpent King’s attacks, when they struck Yitian’s sun-aspected origin aura, trembled violently, as though they might be shattered at any moment.

Yitian’s fists carried scorching, destructive true essence. When they slammed into the Demon Serpent King’s origin aura, they continuously burned through it, greatly consuming his true essence.

Their battle soon moved far away from Lu Family Fort and rose above a barren stretch of land.

Yitian had cultivated the Great Sun Heavenly Art, and his sun-aspected true essence was condensed to the extreme, far surpassing others of the same level. Even the true essence refined by the Demon Serpent King at the origin-law realm was only of that caliber. One must understand that the Demon Serpent King’s true essence had already been honed to its utmost, whereas Yitian’s had only just taken shape. If he continued tempering it and reached the peak of the origin-aura realm, his true essence would far exceed the Demon Serpent King’s Dark Yin true essence.

Thus, the power of their origin aura was nearly equal, and neither could break through the other in attack.

Yitian and the Demon Serpent King fought on like this, locked in a grueling struggle, neither able to gain the upper hand.

At one point, during a collision, the Demon Serpent King took the chance to withdraw from the battle.

He found it hard to believe. With his cultivation a minor level above Yitian’s, he was still unable to suppress him.

Yitian’s true essence was too refined, and more than that, it was vast and continuous, as though inexhaustible.

“Profound Ice Seal!”

Suddenly, the Demon Serpent King erupted with an even greater aura, forming hand seals as his immense Dark Yin true essence converged.

“Not good!”

Seeing this, Yitian was startled. The Demon Serpent King was unleashing an origin-law technique, also known as an origin-law art.

Such techniques are battle arts evolved from the very foundation of a cultivator’s cultivation method once one reaches the origin-law realm. Their power is exceedingly great, no weaker than human-tier battle arts.

The Demon Serpent King’s hands formed a seal.

“Annihilate!”

The Profound Ice Seal suddenly blazed with light, and terrifying cold spread across heaven and earth in an instant. A beam of light filled with icy, dark chill crashed toward Yitian’s position with overwhelming force, engulfing a radius of several hundred yards.

This was the true power of an origin-law expert.

From that Profound Ice Seal, Yitian could sense an utterly destructive force, terrifying enough to obliterate everything.

If he were struck, even if he did not die, he would be grievously wounded.

His origin aura, condensed from true essence, simply could not withstand such a fearsome attack.

“Divine Shift Secret Technique!”

Facing that monstrous strike, Yitian could no longer hold anything back. He fully unleashed the Divine Shift Secret Technique.

Boom.

The Profound Ice Seal blasted through the place where Yitian had just been standing and plunged into a great mountain more than ten miles away.

That mountain was instantly and completely sealed in ice.

A thousand yards away, Yitian’s figure abruptly appeared out of thin air.

After witnessing the power of the Profound Ice Seal, Yitian could not help drawing a sharp breath. Its might was far too terrifying.

This was the means of a human-grade origin-law expert.

They were already able to draw upon a trace of heaven-and-earth power through the profundity of their cultivation arts, causing their strength to surge by dozens or even hundreds of times. Such power was so overwhelming that a human-grade expert at the origin-aura realm could barely hope to contend with it.

“Still not dead!”

Seeing Yitian emerge unharmed, the Demon Serpent King’s pupils contracted.

Yitian had actually appeared a thousand yards away in that instant, evading the strike meant to kill him.

“What kind of movement technique is that?”

A flicker of shock and greed passed through the Demon Serpent King’s eyes.

“Kill!”

Yitian launched his counterattack.

With a movement of the Divine Shift Secret Technique, he appeared before the Demon Serpent King. In his hand, a sword of the firmament condensed from true essence took shape, then came slashing down like thunder, releasing a dazzling, peerless edge.

“What?”

The Demon Serpent King was abruptly shocked.

Yitian’s attack was too fast. More than that, his gaze narrowed sharply as he locked onto the sword of true essence in Yitian’s hand. A terrifying sense of danger made him feel the breath of death.

What a dreadful sword!

The Demon Serpent King’s eyes widened to the limit.

Swoosh.

The sword light flashed by, and the Demon Serpent King’s figure was cut apart in a single stroke.

“Not good!”

Yitian realized at once that it was not the Demon Serpent King’s true body. He immediately activated the Divine Shift Secret Technique to relocate.

Swoosh.

The Demon Serpent King suddenly appeared nearby and struck with a sword at the very spot where Yitian had just been.

That sword was utterly terrifying, unleashing a sword beam over a hundred yards long. It cleaved a distant mountain in two, while the dreadful sword energy left a deep, bottomless scar across the earth.

Yitian, now appearing three hundred yards away, could not help but break into a cold sweat.

He had thought his killing blow would end the Demon Serpent King, but to his surprise, the other was so treacherous that he had nearly turned the tables and slain him instead.

Fortunately, Yitian had sensed that something was wrong and immediately used the Divine Shift Secret Technique to move away.

“A spirit treasure!”

Yitian’s gaze fell upon the long sword in the Demon Serpent King’s hand, its sharpness radiating in all directions, with surrounding energy swirling around it.

He had not expected the other to possess a spirit treasure.

As far as he knew, a spirit treasure was an extravagant luxury for human-grade experts. With one, a person’s strength could increase dramatically, enough even to contend with someone one minor level higher.

Some spirit treasures were even more terrifying, making cross-realm kills easy as breathing.

The value of an ordinary lower-grade spirit treasure might well equal the lifelong fortune of many human-grade experts.

Beyond that, Yitian found it rather unbelievable that the Demon Serpent King had actually evaded his certain-kill strike.

Earlier, Yitian had used the Divine Shift Secret Technique to appear in an instant before the Demon Serpent King and unleash his killing blow with the sword of firmament formed from true essence. At that razor-thin moment, the other had somehow deceived him, leaving behind a clone in his place and escaping the execution strike.

As for the Demon Serpent King himself, he was equally shaken.

Yitian’s burst of power was astonishing, so strong that it threatened his life. If not for the fact that he had cultivated the Dark Yin Incarnation and switched out his true body at the crucial instant, he would likely already be decapitated.

This left the Demon Serpent King both shocked and enraged.

So he revealed his final trump card: the lower-grade spirit treasure in his possession, the Autumn Frost Sword.