Chapter 476: Flesh and blood

The Demonic Lord seemed to realize something and suddenly abandoned his gradual approach, instead launching a fierce assault!

As his Dharma Body vibrated, boundless black mist surged forth, like dark clouds, dust, fierce winds, and torrential rain, constantly bringing forth evil karma, evil speech, evil intentions, and evil retribution. Demonic mist billowed all around, and a sinister aura permeated the air!

Invisible pressure squeezed the earth of the consciousness world, and the air emitted "bang," "bang," "bang" cracking sounds. Cracks appeared on the ground, spreading in all directions like a spiderweb.

The ground of Hell began to sway, and the earth trembled and suddenly cracked open. A dark cloud of mist emerged from the collapsing area.

Even Hell itself collapsed!

The Demonic Overlord's Dharma Body erupted with countless black lights, like a black sun, or rather... it transformed into a dark void that swallowed all light.

In an instant, a shockwave spread, accompanied by rumbling vibrations. A terrifying gravitational force distorted everything around it, and the Great Buddha was directly swallowed into the black sun!

Great black clouds surged, reaching up to the Pure Heaven, bringing pervasive heavy rain, pure hot water, its water boiling and scorching the heavens. Demonic flames boiled, and all things were like butter placed in fire, scorched and consumed, leaving nothing behind.

Li Qi, on the treasure ship, let out a muffled groan. Shen Shuibi's protective talisman glowed again, and several hairs within it silently turned to ash and completely disappeared.

Li Qi ended the Dharma performance without hesitation and then cut off the sacrificial channel.

Just a tiny ripple that permeated through was enough to almost take Li Qi's life.

Fortunately, with the protective talisman guarding him, he barely managed to save his life and promptly cut off the sacrifice, avoiding further impact.

The intensity of a Fourth-Rank battle was still too high for Li Qi.

He could provide intelligence as a Disciple of the Second Generation Heavenly Demon, but he couldn't directly intervene in the battle, and even observing it required risking his life.

Oh, observing wouldn't be an issue. He was still on the treasure ship, and the treasure ship, as a Fifth-Rank, was still exerting its power and protecting its passengers. That's why Li Qi wasn't harmed by the extreme weather in Hell. So, as long as he didn't actively establish contact himself, and the opponent didn't directly attack Li Qi, the residual effects alone shouldn't harm anyone on the ship.

Moreover, Li Qi felt that the opponent most likely wouldn't attack him.

The reason was simple.

For these Fourth-Rank individuals, their Dao Heart no longer cared about killing people or not.

To them, killing was like opening a can, merely a means to an end. A Fourth-Rank's Dao Heart wouldn't have any emotional fluctuations over a can, nor would they open cans for no reason.

Ultimately, achieving the goal was the key. Killing was just one of the means. Right now, they only needed to kill Cang Hou. Li Qi was an expendable item; there was no need to pay attention to him.

Thinking this, Li Qi knew he couldn't contact Cang Hou, and he had no way to intervene in the battle himself. The opponent also didn't bother with him, so he could only start observing the battle.

He had a rather calm mind, mainly because he considered this:

If he could gain even a tiny bit of insight from a Fourth-Rank battle, it would be infinitely beneficial.

Since everything he could do had been done, having already informed Cang Hou of the Demon of the Five Aggregates's weakness and the characteristics of the Demonic Dao, all that remained was to see Cang Hou's performance.

Li Qi began to observe seriously, only to see on the battlefield—

From Demonic Lord Moluo Yan's body, countless shadowy ropes flew out. These shadowy ropes were like countless pythons, dazzlingly coiling around Cang Hou's Heavenly Principle Barrier, wrapping him into a black sphere.

Then, these ropes began to roar. Every rope on the black sphere formed by these ropes trembled, spun at high speed, and let out a hiss!

That's right, the ropes themselves were hissing! Li Qi looked closely and realized, how could these be mere ropes?!

These ropes were clearly a massive pile of living souls!

Incredibly, these souls were each stretched into ropes, each incredibly slender, about seven or eight meters long, intertwined. And from the center of their bodies, countless slender arms radiated, these arms twisted and turned, coiling around each other, a large group entangled, forming a hemp rope like fibers.

Countless souls formed these ropes.

These were the living vengeful spirits refined by the Demonic Lord—! And among these souls, the highest cultivation was actually Fifth-Rank, and the lowest was Seventh-Rank!

They constantly hissed, then actively used their lives to launch assaults, continuously eroding the Heavenly Principle Barrier.

The Five Aggregates Demonic Path, obscuring the five aggregates, controlled these souls, making them believe in an illusion that they were making some unavoidable sacrifice, protecting and saving their loved ones or cherished things.

But in reality, they were merely controlled by the Demonic Dao, using their lives for meaningless consumption. Their lives had long since ended in Demonic Lord Moluo Yan's hands, becoming his weapons, constantly deceived by the five aggregates illusion.

Cang Hou's Heavenly Principle Barrier, under the impact of these vengeful spirits, was like a ship in a storm, shaking violently. Every fiber within it lost its balance, and Cang Hou was dragged by this shaking, even pulled out, as if on a gallows.

Li Qi watched closely. If it were just simple pulling, Li Qi himself could break free using some force-dissipating methods.

But clearly, it wasn't that simple.

All these black ropes were undergoing simple harmonic motion.

The vibrations of all the ropes were not perfectly synchronized; each rope would be slightly slower than the rope above it.

Each rope could perform up-and-down and left-and-right distributed movements relative to the black sphere below. Each relative movement had to subtract a dt, where dt was the time difference when the relative lower rope last moved identically. If one were to list the equations of motion separately, with four equations for each rope and four intervals for each equation, connecting them into a single equation might require 4 to the power of n equations, which would then have 4 to the power of n intervals...

Plus the terrifying number of ropes and the subjective outbursts of the vengeful spirits within them...

Doing this meant that the resultant force was almost impossible to calculate; it could only be endured forcefully, and could not be counteracted by force-dissipating methods.

The methods of a Fourth-Rank are truly... miraculous.

Moreover, besides Demonic Lord Moluo Yan, there was another True Dragon, Ao Guangxiao.

Ao Guangxiao's body suddenly expanded. The Physical Body of a True Dragon erupted with extremely terrifying power, capable of clashing head-on even with martial arts experts!

The Dao of Heaven’s Evolution is the self-selection of life.

And True Dragons are at the pinnacle of the Dao of Heaven’s Evolution; they are unchanging beings.

It is precisely because of flaws and inability to adapt to the environment that evolution occurs.

Without flaws, there is no evolution, and no need for change. As the ultimate product capable of adapting to all environments, the True Dragon's Physical Body is the strongest among all Dao Orthodoxy, truly an 'unchanging being'.

The Dragon's body, with its stable five viscera, firm muscles, abundant Bloodline, strong sinews and bones, and full meridians, possesses immense strength of billions of catties for every foot of its height. Now, its body grew even larger, rapidly expanding, extending by thousands of times!

Li Qi estimated that Ao Guangxiao's body was at least ten thousand miles long at this moment! He truly couldn't imagine how much brute strength he possessed!

At the same time, Ao Guangxiao took a deep breath, swallowing the Heavenly River. Instead of washing with the Heavenly River's water, he exerted his Dragon tail and fiercely struck the Heavenly Principle Barrier in front of him!

Li Qi did not sense any Divine Ability; this was simply a pure brute force strike.

Only—

The drumming of the air, the drumming from the Dragon's sinews, infinite power twisted together like hemp ropes. The Dragon's muscles completely relaxed, and a subtle ripple passed over them.

Li Qi, observing the battle, felt his body tighten and his whole body tremble! Even his hair stood on end!

Fortunately, he wasn't wearing a hat at the moment; if he had been, his standing hair would probably have completely pushed it off!

The whip effect.

When a flexible arc, similar to a whip, begins to generate waves, the whip effect occurs. At this point, the displacement of the protruding part is several times that of the main body. When the whip swings at high speed, it curls to form a wave shape, and when this wave reaches the tip, it greatly increases the speed imparted by the whip body.

Therefore, when spinning a top, a small whip, with a gentle flick, can produce a strong sonic boom, easily sending a large top weighing tens of catties flying.

If a small whip is like this, what about a Dragon body ten thousand miles long?

Li Qi witnessed that tiny ripple gradually extending over the Dragon's body, with endless power accumulating on it, layer upon layer.

At the same time, Li Qi also sensed a familiar spell.

It was the spell Shen Shuibi used to increase speed to the Heavenly Dao limit when traveling outside the domain.

The Heavenly Dao limit is insurmountable; this limit can absolutely not be broken through. The closer one gets, the more energy is required. Reaching this limit would require infinite energy, so it's impossible to reach.

However, the limit itself can be manipulated by controlling the Dao, raising the upper bound of this limit. This way, speed can continue to increase without worrying about hitting the limit.

This was exactly what was happening now.

Ao Guangxiao used his own body as a whip, breaking through the speed of a ten-thousand-mile-long body in an extremely short instant!

This was a whip strike far exceeding the speed of light!

Speed plus mass equals destructive power.

A ten-thousand-mile-long body, striking Cang Hou's Heavenly Principle Barrier at a speed far exceeding the speed of light!

This was absolute brute force, absolute destruction!

All that was seen was a flash of light—

There wasn't even a sound, because the speed had already exceeded sound by countless times!

Following that flash of light, the ground of Hell cracked open.

A colossal mushroom cloud rose, and the fierce winds unleashed by the explosion almost destroyed the world. The Fifth-Rank treasure ship instantly erected its protective barrier, resisting the aftershocks and protecting the crew inside.

Li Qi could see nothing; his vision was filled only with endless brilliance. It wasn't a soft light, but the light and heat generated by the explosion!

This was absolutely the most dazzling sight Li Qi had ever witnessed in his life. A torrent of colors and light washed over his eyes, and pure energy surged and burned before him.

Li Qi couldn't help but shed tears, as the overly intense light filled his eyes. He was like a Mortal, foolishly staring directly at the midday sun, his eyes pierced by the light. All he could see was a vast whiteness, nothing else, as if covered by a thick frosted glass.

It took a full four or five seconds for this torrent of light to gradually disappear.

Li Qi rubbed his eyes. He had no choice but to activate his Divine Ability to heal himself.

The aftershocks were completely blocked by the protective talisman and the Fifth-Rank treasure ship. All he saw was light.

But just that light had scorched the eyes of a Seventh-Rank, he was truly blind just now, forced to use Divine Ability to reshape his eyes.

With great difficulty, he opened his eyes, only to see that the surroundings had become an endless Void Realm.

Tens of thousands of miles away, he could still seemingly see red walls, and looking down, he could also see the ground, but the treasure ship was floating in the air.

Li Qi immediately realized what had happened.

The True Dragon's strike, the explosion, destroyed the ground of Hell! And it created a massive cavity, tens of thousands of miles across, within the continent! They were now in this cavity, and the red walls in the distance were a cross-section of Hell's earth after the explosion blasted out the huge cavity!

"Damn it..." Li Qi cursed. He could feel that some of Hell's difficult Yin Qi was invading the treasure ship; his surroundings had already been eroded by Hell.

This could only happen for one reason: the treasure ship had cracked. The aftershocks of a Fourth-Rank battle had caused irreparable damage to the treasure ship.

Truly worthy of being the aftershocks of a Fourth-Rank battle...

Fortunately, the Fifth-Rank treasure ship was sturdy enough to withstand the aftershocks and prevent him from dying directly.

The others around him were still entranced by the Demonic Qi and had not woken up.

So, what exactly was happening on the battlefield? Li Qi looked up, activating his pupil insect to enhance his eyesight, and once again gazed at the battlefield tens of thousands of miles away.

Then, he realized that he didn't need to activate the pupil insect.

Because both sides' bodies had already expanded to thousands of miles in size!

Moluo Yan's Dharma Body was already thousands of miles high, and the True Dragon didn't even need a Dharma Body; its Physical Body alone was ten thousand miles long.

On the other side, Cang Hou, a Fourth-Rank of the Dao of Reason, had no physical Dharma Body, but he now revealed the true foundation of the Dao of Reason.

That was Spiritual Artifact!

Li Qi saw two colossal Puppet Spiritual Artifact, both Fourth-Rank, both ten thousand miles in size, standing majestically in this cavity, awe-inspiring beyond measure!

Li Qi could see that they were two... Giant Spirit God!

Two Giant Spirit God, each with broad chests, strong bones and muscles, imposing and majestic, exhaling white Qi from their mouths and noses, towering ten thousand zhang high.

Truly a Divine Qi descending from the clouds, a Divine Might ascending to the heavens!

With bodies ten thousand miles long, golden rings shining like clouds, eyes spewing rays of light, iron armor covered in frost, and mouths swallowing the sun's shadow.

One Giant Spirit God, enraged, wielded a great axe, piercing the Demonic Gate, seemingly able to cleave Mount Tai.

One Giant Spirit God, majestic, held a heavy hammer, its brilliant light turning to wrath, as if it had already smashed the vast ocean.

With eyes wide open, the two Fourth-Rank Divine Dao Puppets, with Cang Hou, who had abandoned his defenses, in between them, began their counterattack!

Li Qi knew that with both sides constantly deploying their methods, the battle was likely to directly enter a life-and-death close-quarters combat stage!