Book 5, Chapter 64: Desolate Beast White Fang 2
Chapter 64: Desolate Beast White Fang (2)
The flaming phoenix was still a phoenix, but this time Su Chen had infused his flames with darkness and unleashed the full power of the Shadow Flames, causing the Flaming Phoenix’s might to increase even further.
The black flames surged through the sky, carrying a paradoxical chilling intent. Before the flames even came close to him, Chu Huailiang couldn’t help but shiver.
He immediately realized that this dark Flaming Phoenix was not something his Sky-Rending Blade could defend against. As such, he tilted his head back and howled maniacally as the Desolate Beast image behind him charged forwards into Chu Huailiang’s body and disappeared. At the same time, Chu Huailiang’s body began to grow larger and larger, and his figure began to morph as he turned into a massive human-shaped beast with a large horn in the middle of his forehead. He had morphed into the shape of Desolate Beast White Fang.
Giving an illusory image actual substance was the final manifestation of a bloodline.
Chu Huailiang’s vigor and essence was actually weaker in this tangible form, but though the aura belonged to the Desolate Beast, the strength was his now his own.
Even as the illusory Desolate Beast image disappeared and its pressure receded, Chu Huailiang could sense his physical body growing stronger and stronger.
In that moment, he was a Desolate Beast!
Even if he was only displaying one ten-thousandth of the power of a Desolate Beast, that was already vastly stronger than most cultivators could handle.
Chu Huailiang howled as he faced off against the dark Flaming Phoenix as he spoke using his beast-shaped mouth, “You should be honored that you were able to push me to this point. But all your ability can only amount to so much!”
As he spoke, he stretched out his claw, grabbing the dark Flaming Phoenix and snapping its neck like it was merely a chicken. He snarled with laughter, “What nonsense! A human bloodline? Everything is worthless before my Desolate Beast!”
As he clenched his fist, the Flaming Phoenix shattered and dissipated in a shower of sparks. However, when the sparks landed on Chu Huailiang’s body, they actually sizzled and left behind dark pockmarks in his skin.
“Shadow Flames.” Chu Huailiang had quite an extensive breadth of experience given that he was able to recognize the true essence of these flames. “Shadow Flames are quite corrosive. No wonder these sparks were able to completely ignore my barrier, and even wounded me after I turned into a beast. Su Chen, you should be proud of what you have accomplished. But your path ends here. Now you should be out of skills to use, right?”
“How do you figure?” Su Chen sneered.
Chu Huailiang was taken aback. “You still have more? That’s impossible! I can clearly tell that you just used all of your strength!”
“That might not be the case,” Su Chen laughed. “Sometimes you can rely on outward items for strength as well.”
Chu Huailiang was startled. All of a sudden, he seemed to recall something and began to yell loudly, “Lifesource Candles? You’re going to use Lifesource Candles!”
Chu Huailiang immediately regretted the fact that he had forgotten Su Chen possessed such powerful tools.
Actually, it wasn’t so much that he had forgotten. Chu Huailiang had just been too overconfident in his strength, believing that Su Chen might not be his opponent even with the Lifesource Candles. After all, Lifesource Candles were primarily used to save people and break restrictive techniques. As such, unless his opponent did not possess a powerful restrictive technique, the Lifesource Candles wouldn’t provide too much support. Most importantly, if he attacked decisively enough, Su Chen might not even have had time to use the Lifesource Candles.
He had not expected for Su Chen to be so much stronger to the point where he was actually being forced to morph into beast form.
Chu Huailiang would be completely doomed if Su Chen were to tack on a Lifesource Candle under these kinds of circumstances.
Also, Su Chen had not just one but 161 of them!
Chu Huailiang was filled with regret when he thought of this fact.
Unexpectedly, Su Chen replied, “Don’t worry, I didn’t bring those things out to play anyways. I don’t need to use them to finish you off.”
What? You didn’t bring them with you?
Chu Huailiang was immediately delighted. That was too good.
But how could Su Chen not have possibly carried such important items with him?
But if he were to say that he wasn’t planning on using it, Chu Huailiang wouldn’t have believed him. At most, he would have believed that Su Chen was just pretending to be generous but would use it in a moment of danger. As long as this thought was in Chu Huailiang’s head, it was impossible for him to go all out, and he would probably have constantly been thinking about how to escape or retreat.
If someone like Chu Huailiang wanted to run, Su Chen didn’t really have the confidence that he could stop him.
As such, he purposefully said that he hadn’t brought the Lifesource Candles with him so that Chu Huailiang would feel more at ease.
Su Chen hadn’t used one of those candles up to this point anyways.
In his view, even though Lifesource Candles were powerful, this power did not actually belong to him. Even if he was to use external support, that support would still be from his power.
“But now that you mention it, as long as I am the one producing the external supports, it shouldn’t be cheating……” As he spoke, Su Chen pulled out a vial of medicine and shattered it. Seven or eight Su Chen’s immediately appeared in the sky.
Chu Huailiang was momentarily taken aback before he chuckled coldly, “Just a clone technique? That’s not enough to let you do as you please! Break for me!”
He waved his hand, and a wave of white light surged forwards. Fierce, large gnats were hidden in the light, and they charged at Su Chen in that moment.
Based on classical accounts, White Fang was able to birth and sustain these strange gnats. The gnats were bloodthirsty and fierce, gathering readily in large groups as they flew back and forth.
Chu Huailiang had a horde of these gnats due to his White Fang Bloodline. Even though these gnats weren’t as powerful as the White Fang’s, Chu Huailiang had spent some time to raise them on his own blood, so they still had quite powerful defenses and were hard to kill. They were a fantastic asset in larger-scale battles.
Chu Huailiang never used this technique lightly. When he saw Su Chen’s clone technique, however, he decided to pull out these gnats to deal with the clones.
Su Chen harrumphed when he saw this swarm of gnats flying in his direction. The seven or eight Su Chens raised their hands simultaneously, forming seven Flaming Phoenixes all at once.
Even though only Su Chen’s main body could produce the dark Flaming Phoenix, the sudden appearance of seven normal ones was still quite shocking.
Chu Huailiang was badly startled. He instinctively said, “This must be an illusion, right?”
An instant later, the eight Flaming Phoenixes in the sky swooped down, unleashing a barrage of flames on the swarm of gnats.
The swarm of gnats had been raised on Chu Huailiang’s blood essence and were incredibly fierce, but even they had a hard time withstanding the blustering wave of energy washing over them. They whined and whinged, clearly in great pain.
The gnats were quite brave and didn’t retreat, but the flames had come from eight Flaming Phoenixes and covered a vast area, raising the temperature to an almost unwithstandable temperature. They were burned to a crisp before they even managed to reach Su Chen.
“My babies!” Chu Huailiang yelled as his heart panged with sorrow.
Unfortunately, these gnats, which he had spent countless days raising and which had served him very well in the past, all died in this battle, not even leaving behind a seed. How could he not feel sorrowful?
He didn’t even have an opportunity to vent his rage on Su Chen as a wave of raging flames came surging in his direction.
The combined might of seven or eight Flaming Phoenixes could not easily be ignored, not to mention that his phoenixes were now imbued with the power of darkness. Chu Huailiang was forced to go all-out in order to deal with such an imposing attack. The Lotus Platforms behind his back began to glow intensely as all seven appeared at once, infusing his body with protective power. His beast bloodline activated to its greatest extent, and streaks of blade light began to gather in the sky, forming one Sky-Rending Blade after another which shot forth, creating a storm of lightning.
“White Fang’s Bite!” Chu Huailiang howled ferociously.
This was his first time using one of his trump cards. White Fang’s Bite was put on full display, and the blade light descended on the mountain below, continuing to slice through the dense mountainous rock and causing it to fall away in sheets from the face of the cliff.
The Su Chen’s in midair began to disappear one by one, reduced to nothing by the powerful attack.
Su Chen’s main body was still present, however, and yet another dark Flaming Phoenix took flight. Not only so, but the four faces behind Su Chen began to whirl around, causing a fierce wind to blow at the fire and causing it to burn even more fiercely. The sea of flames once again swallowed up Chu Huailiang’s attack.
“How is this even possible?” At this point, Chu Huailiang was so surprised that his eyes were almost about to pop out of their sockets.
Now that the battle had reached this point, both sides had put their full strength on display. Now, they were comparing not only technique power but also residual energy stores. Chu Huailiang hadn’t expected that Su Chen’s Origin Energy would be so abundant as well. Even though Origin Stones allowed a person to recover their Origin Energy, they were burning through much more energy than mere Origin Stones could restore. There was no way either one of them would give their opponent the opportunity to replenish their Origin Energy stores. At their level, the victor was still going to be determined by personal strength.
Chu Huailiang had seven Lotus Platforms and had burned through a large quantity of energy contained in those platforms. By now, Su Chen should have run out of strength, but it seemed like Su Chen was still full of vigor. Chu Huailiang had an extremely hard time understanding how this was even possible.
He didn’t know that Su Chen had invented the Immaculate Cultivation Technique and that Su Chen’s Origin Energy was seven times denser than that of a normal person. Currently, Su Chen actually possessed more total Origin Energy than Chu Huailiang.
This was the reason he could unleash his Theurgy Arts with reckless abandon. Otherwise, it would have been very hard for him to pose a threat to someone with a Desolate Beast Bloodline.
At this point, both parties were still locked in fierce combat. Chu Huailiang poured all of his energy into maintaining White Fang’s Bite, while Su Chen did the same with his dark Flaming Phoenix. Even though White Fang’s offensive capabilities were quite impressive, the corrosive properties of the dark flames were a force to be reckoned with. Both of them were constantly being wounded, so all that remained was to see who could last longer.
In terms of pure vitality, Chu Huailiang was obviously far inferior to Su Chen.
However, Chu Huailiang was not a common person, and he naturally had more cards up his sleeve. When he saw how stubborn Su Chen was being, Chu Huailiang gnashed his teeth and said, “Fine, I must admit that you are very impressive. Very few people can reach the level you have reached by their own strength alone. I have punched above my weight class a number of times, but now it is actually happening to me. But this all ends now!”
As he spoke, he pulled out an item - a golden pearl.
As soon as this pearl appeared, it whirled around nimbly as it drew away the dark Flaming Phoenix’s power, instantly dramatically reducing its might.
“Flame-Dispelling Pearl?” Su Chen was also stunned. He had never expected Chu Huailiang to take out an item like that.
Flame-Dispelling Pearls were not rare, but that depended on what level of flames they were able to dispel. Normal Flame-Dispelling Pearls would find it impossible to dispel Su Chen’s Flaming Phoenixes.
Since the one Chu Huailiang was holding could divert Su Chen’s flames, its quality must have been incredibly high.
Chu Huailiang had avoided using it because he believed that he could deal with his opponent by his own strength. Now, however, when he saw his opponent seemingly becoming stronger and stronger without showing any signs of exhaustion, he could only take it out and use it - especially because he himself was about to collapse.
Even this pearl didn’t seem to be able to last for very long under the deluge of flames, and it was already beginning to crack.
This was yet another reason Chu Huailiang hadn’t been willing to use the pearl at the very beginning.
Chu Huailiang would never let Su Chen get away with destroying one of his treasures. He snarled, “Now let’s see how you defend yourself!”
Countless streaks of white light shot towards Su Chen.