Chapter 779: Fierce fighting

The third second of the battle.

At this moment, the battlefield, a thousand two hundred li around, had become a dead land, burning with the gray flames transformed from the corpses of the Di Qi (Earthly Qi).

Li Qi didn't even dare to let his magic power touch these flames.

For Invoker of the Di Qi (Earthly Qi) lineage, even a mere touch of magic power would cling like a gangrene, burning Li Qi's cultivation along the magic power, spreading to his Physical Body and Inner World, ultimately incinerating him completely.

Moreover, all of this was still expanding rapidly, the wails of the Di Qi (Earthly Qi) constantly reverberating, and the death of the earth continuously spreading.

Heavenly God refers to the First Gods who create things.

Di Qi (Earthly Qi), on the other hand, refers to the spirits of these created things, such as the Heavenly Dao of the world, or the spirits within matter.

The death of Di Qi (Earthly Qi) signifies the demise of these things.

The fifth second of the battle, the damage radius had already reached three thousand li.

Looking down from the sky at this moment, one would find that mountain ranges and water veins were like a huge network of crisscrossing streets.

Settlements, various buildings, and various terrains were scattered like stars, but all had turned gray, like a giant map spread out and then smeared black with ink.

The map seemed to have been splashed with ink, just as ink spreads on blotting paper, each murky splash continuously expanding, spreading, branching everywhere, sometimes encountering high ground and piling up, sometimes rapidly flowing over mountain slopes and into a valley.

These inks shrouded a pile of marble-patterned mist, partly white mist, partly black Qi, swirling and mixing, extremely bizarre.

But when one truly delved in, one could see that it was all gray fire.

The seventh second of the battle, a radius of three thousand eight hundred li had turned into a dead land.

This distance, for a Fourth Grade, was no different from being face-to-face, so it didn't threaten Li Qi; as long as Li Qi continued to dodge, this speed wouldn't touch him.

But, should he still dodge?

By the seventh second, among the dead Di Qi (Earthly Qi), there were already Seventh Grade ones. As the death of the Di Qi (Earthly Qi) spread, the gray flames gradually grew stronger. Death would accumulate, as Li Qi had judged before. By the fifteenth second, the accumulated power would be enough to launch an attack that he couldn't dodge.

Time was running out.

Eighth second, Qiu Zhi calmly stepped forward. True people are not afraid of natural death. Such foolish talk about coexisting with the environment would only come from a Shaman.

Large numbers of Mountain and Water Deities were all destroyed, and the battlefield had already spread to inhabited areas.

The gray flames spread at a slow but steady pace. Large numbers of demonic beasts, mountain spirits, and wild monsters constantly fled, fear spreading like a plague. Any creature affected by the gray flames would be dragged into death with the earth.

All kinds of birds and beasts, elves and wild monsters, all became restless. They rushed out of their homes and nests, ran onto the roads, and fled by various means, forming a mighty torrent flowing in the opposite direction of the flames.

However, for them, the 'slow' spreading speed for a Fourth Grade was an insurmountable chasm. No matter how slow these flames were, they still moved at a speed of hundreds of li per second. Although the spreading speed was gradually decreasing due to the increasing coverage area, it was still much faster than the speed of Eighth Grade and Ninth Grade.

Destruction spread out.

Since that was the case…

After the ninth second, Li Qi finally made his move.

After nine seconds of hesitation, he still chose to endure.

At that instant, within a circle of four thousand five hundred li, the earth suddenly sank.

At the edge of this circle, a ring about one li wide, the earth within the ring was flattened, becoming a smooth surface. All terrain became a vast plain, though this flat and boundless plain had some inconspicuous undulations.

This ring enclosed the expanding gray earth, seemingly intending to prevent its continued spread.

This made Qiu Zhi slightly surprised, but he said nothing more, merely continuing to advance.

As long as Li Qi's magic power touched these flames, it would immediately spread throughout his entire Dao, forcing him and the Di Qi (Earthly Qi) to face death together.

He was not in a hurry, he just watched how Li Qi would respond.

But on Li Qi's side, he formed hand seals, and then, these undulations suddenly erupted with light.

Upon closer inspection, one would realize that those inconspicuous undulations were actually runes, and if one stood on the ground and looked at these runes, they would be unflattened mountain ranges.

This ring was a Formation.

The purpose of this Formation was… to cut.

The mountains, constructed from runes shimmering with bizarre colors, abruptly sank.

Looking further ahead, the 'worlds' enclosed by the ring subsequently fractured.

Whether it was the earth, or the world, or even 'direction' itself, all were cut open, and then, a strange giant rose from beneath the earth. He carried this four thousand five hundred li circular earth and stood up.

The lifted earth looked like a cylinder, about ten thousand li high and four thousand five hundred li in circumference, the entire gray earth.

Detached from the world, surrounded by bottomless abysses, looking down, one truly couldn't tell how many tens of thousands of li it was from the ground.

The giant, tens of thousands of li tall, plus the ten thousand li high cylindrical earth, thus stood erect, witnessed by countless people.

This giant, his existence… was like a world. This was a Mountain God.

This world-sized giant had four legs like pillars supporting the sky, allowing it to move its enormous body without collapsing.

Its skin was made of rock-like material, so its entire body looked like it was covered by hills.

Subsequently, the giant raised its head, but due to its immense body, its full form could not be seen. Even with great effort to gaze, only a small part of its body could be seen. Even standing on its head, one could not see anything other than the head.

After all, this giant's body was similar to a planet; standing on it was like standing on a planet.

This was like how the Earth is a sphere, but humans standing on it only see flat ground.

When an object is too large, standing on it, one cannot clearly see its true appearance.

"inner body spirits?" Qiu Zhi immediately realized what this was.

Li Qi summoned his inner body spirits. As a Fourth Grade Invoker, his inner body spirits undoubtedly possessed Fourth Grade combat power.

Now, this inner body spirits, cooperating with Li Qi's main body, cut the world apart and isolated it, preventing the gray earth from continuing to spread.

However… this also caused this inner body spirits to be eroded. As the long spear slashed down, the inner body spirits' body also turned gray, covered by the dim flames.

According to Qiu Zhi's understanding, these inner body spirits would bring the erosion to Li Qi's body.

However, in the next instant, he suddenly realized… none of this happened.

He immediately perceived what Li Qi had done.

This made Qiu Zhi couldn't help but praise, "Bold, but how long can this last? How many inner body spirits do you have to use like this?"

While asking, Li Qi ignored him. He was proceeding with his next action.

Just as Qiu Zhi said.

He couldn't endure many times.

In fact, what he had just done was to cut himself; he had severed his inner body spirits!

In other words, he was cutting off his own flesh.

The way to prevent the gray flames from spreading to him was to simply cut off the touched areas.

Every time he touched the gray flames, he would permanently lose that part of his cultivation, just like cutting off a hand immediately after touching sulfuric acid.

This kind of loss was irreversible.

For example, the giant in front of him was one of Li Qi's five Mountain and Water Deities . Now Li Qi had permanently lost this Mountain God, and trying to recover it through cultivation… was impossible.

He would need to rebuild his Inner World, and might even consider re-cultivating without reincarnation, and would also need a good doctor's help to possibly recover.

But those were not things to consider now; any loss was better than death.

Although Li Qi had already severed his inner body spirits, causing it to be merely a shell, it could still be controlled through pre-arranged spells.

Under his control, the giant stepped forward, sending ripples across the earth.

The giant's body stretched and elongated, beginning to swing the ten thousand li giant pillar in its hand like a club!

The hurricane unleashed by this blow could, by wind pressure alone, rub magma from the ground!

Countless rivers of magma overflowed the surface along huge cracks in the ground, causing violent explosions, spewing large amounts of gas and volcanic debris, forming powerful pyroclastic flows, and large amounts of magma caused the volcano to collapse!

This scene was simply—

Carrying Mount Tai to leap over the North Sea!

Only a sky-shattering, earth-shattering roar was heard, like countless spiderwebs tearing open the earth, shaking one's soul. The sound spread far and wide, echoing within an unknown radius.

The gray flames burned across the sky! Growing more and more intense, even becoming somewhat frenzied.

The sky was dyed crimson, and the countless pains and fears of the Di Qi (Earthly Qi) were displayed in Qiu Zhi's painting, seemingly carrying a subtle sense of oppression.

And the target of this strike was Qiu Zhi!

Qiu Zhi was below, facing the inner body spirits' smash!

One below, one above, the pressure they unleashed even caused the air to crackle, and stones to turn to dust. Looking up from below, it was as if a god was unleashing divine punishment.

Boom! With a loud bang, a massive, meteor-like light streaked across.

Heaven and Earth annihilated! A huge shockwave surged skyward! Clouds within ten thousand li were all overturned, the ground sank, and a deep gash was born from the point of impact, like a bottomless abyss.

The impact produced a massive tremor, and then… matter completely dissolved.

With sheer brute force and speed, matter was smashed into Qi… For many lower civilizations, merely observing such an impact would be enough for their basic science to rapidly develop, because this was essentially a super massive hadron collider experiment.

This collision caused a massive amount of matter to break down into fundamental particles, becoming a cloud of mist.

From within the mist, something scraped with sparks and rushed up, arriving before the sound could even travel, gently striking the inner body spirits.

With a gentle touch, the clouds parted and the moon shone brightly, and all the mist dissipated.

Silently, the inner body spirits was completely destroyed, its body directly pierced through, the void large enough to fit the earth's cylinder.

Qiu Zhi stood on the giant's shoulder: "Too much power was wasted, and too many areas were affected. Didn't we agree not to affect too many people?"

Li Qi did not reply.

However, unconsciously, everything started anew.

Determining the future, what happened in that last second was 'erased'.

Zhu Fengdan had also displayed similar power. Back in Qingwu City, when facing Jin Chi's attack, Li Qi used the Qi of 'Chen' to nullify Jin Chi's attack, making it as if it had never happened. And because Jin Chi had no substantiality, he didn't even know he had attacked. (See Chapter 155 for details)

This was a similar method now, but because Qiu Zhi possessed initial substantiality, he remembered what had just happened. He knew it had indeed occurred, but it was erased.

But this also secretly startled Qiu Zhi.

Fourth Grade possessed preliminary substantiality and could retain memories during a flashback, but they would still be affected by the flashback to some extent. Moreover, Fourth Grade usually couldn't actively flashback themselves; they could only preserve themselves but couldn't reconstruct space-time.

Determining the future and flashing back, this was a typical Third Grade trait, and according to the data, Li Qi already possessed this trait when he was Fifth Grade.

How amazing, what a pity… Being able to kill nature, this was his trump card, and also the reason he could be selected to counter the Shaman.

For Li Qi, who belonged to the Di Qi (Earthly Qi) lineage, this was unsolvable. This was doubly certified by the Minister of the Ministry of War and the Privy Council. Li Qi absolutely had no way to deal with this move.

So far, none of the Shaman who died by his hand had a way to deal with it, not even higher grades. Third Grade could only kill him before he used it, but couldn't directly break this move.

It's just another round.

Qiu Zhi thought this, facing the inner body spirits, which was unharmed after the alteration, and attacked again.

Last time, he had pierced through the inner body spirits in one go. This time, he didn't expect any change.

Li Qi's main body couldn't possibly clash with him, let alone a single inner body spirits.

Gathering power, controlled by spells, transforming energy into destructive force.

Spells were necessary; if it were just a pure burst of power, one unit of power would only exert one unit of destructive force.

And an excellent spell could exert one hundred percent destructive force from one unit of power.

Of course, some spells would be counterproductive, expending great effort but yielding little power; these usually had special purposes.

Another strike was launched.

Energy gathered, once again passing through the inner body spirits' defense, dodging that swing, and precisely hitting the inner body spirits' torso.

Destructive power erupted! The inner body spirits, struck by this blow, stumbled uncontrollably.

But this made Qiu Zhi's pupils shrink.

Just now, it was a direct penetration.

Why was it just a stumble this time? (End of chapter)