Chapter 673 - The Great Battle Concludes

Anyone who made a wrong choice must pay the price. Xiadu was no exception. When it stirred up the manhunt against Blood Vulture Dominator Fist and Cassius in the World of Calamity, it had misread the situation and underestimated the two. Thus, Xiadu made the wrong choice.

Once the real battle began, it found that Blood Vulture Dominator Fist was not exhausted and feeble at all, but had recovered two-thirds of his original might. Cassius was the same, and indeed beyond his imagination. He could fend off a dozen Ultimate Dark Forms besieging him at once. Xiadu would most likely pay a grievous price.

The situation was grim beneath the overlapping blood moons. Xiadu's smoky black figure hovered quietly, with its face blurred and twisted. It breathed in calamity at a special frequency that echoed the bright and dim blood moons overhead. It turned slightly, sweeping its eyes across the battlefield.

Behind him, an old figure wrapped entirely in Qi stared like a tiger hunting prey. His blood-soaked long hair, laden with killing intent, whipped wildly. The savage phantom of a vulture spread its wings along his shoulders and back. The bird's head lifted skyward with its beak agape, as if to swallow the moons!

In front, a tall, stalwart figure stood with his powerful arms folded across his chest and an icy smile on his face. A terrifying aura spread as black demonic flames surged skyward. The hem of his wide coat billowed in the updraft like a cape flung toward the sky.

Malice... A vast ocean of malice. Malice seemed condensed into crashing giant waves, hundreds of meters high. They sought to drag everything into the abyss. Any being could not help but grow grave.

"So this is how Kasseres fell..." Xiadu's projection sighed. Xiadu finally realized the truth of the Totem King's fall. "It seems relying merely on a projection was truly overconfident..."

The second its Will finished speaking, Blood Vulture Dominator Fist and Cassius attacked together. One crimson and one black fist ripped through the sky, striking at Xiadu's projection!

Boom!

Light and heat splattered in all directions as the dreadful blast shook the heavens. A mushroom cloud exploded. At the very center of the collision, Xiadu's smoky form was in tatters. The arms that rose to block had been shattered in an instant. The pressure on its body suddenly plummeted rapidly.

"Suddenly pulling back your energy? Don't tell me?!" Xiadu's gaze flickered as it instantly grasped Blood Vulture and Cassius's intent. It decisively collapsed its inner core, relinquishing its restraint over calamity energy as it attempted to return to the previous imprint point.

Just then, two hidden forces inside its smoky body suddenly erupted. They broke the process off, paralyzing it.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Boom!

Two shadows, one black and the other blood-hued, struck at the same moment. They attacked the Xiadu projection like a raging storm, using everything from fists, feet, elbows, to knees at unbelievable speed.

However, the force stopped short of killing, hammering only the body's key calamity nodes to scatter its energy. Xiadu's smoky form was like grass in rain, unmoored and wavering. It was kneaded and toyed with like dough by Blood Vulture Dominator Fist and Cassius.

After all, it was not the true body. Xiadu's projection in the World of Calamity was formed by its Will, drawing on calamity energy to reform. Essentially, its body was a portion of the world's calamity gathered together. It fell far short of its true body when it came to strength and ability. The only commendable thing was its imprint ability.

Once that imprint ability was disrupted, its threat would plunge. Even the Will it had sent down risked being badly wounded by Blood Vulture and Cassius.

"So that's the strategy you're going for!" Xiadu's battered form quivered as light flashed in its eyes.

"Moon Palm Seal, Fallen Heaven!"

Rumble.

Both blood moons began to vibrate. High above, the winds howled like a thousand ghosts wailing.

The two moons, which were only partly overlapped, suddenly began to fuse into one. Then, the scaled hand grown from the blood moons began to swell rapidly! Its blue-black scales grew dense and lustrous, hardening ever more. Calamity smoke gushed from every scale.

Krack.

Thick talons folded inward, forming a fist.

Boom!

A single blow slammed down as if a continental plate had descended. The black colossus was like a titanic mountain vaulting the land as it streaked into Xiadu's Fallen Heaven.

Bang, bang, bang...

Massive shockwaves rippled across the sky. They nearly covered the entirety of the Pitch Black Mountains and Crystal Sand Sea. The immense might from the two clashing forces etched densely packed fissures across the land below.

Crack!

Two great rents opened on the Golem's arms. Cassius was hurt, but he had blocked the strike. The Golem's defense could be called the strongest amongst the Ultimate Dark Forms! Yet Cassius felt no joy at having withstood Xiadu's Fallen Heaven. He turned icily and glanced downward. There, Xiadu had restarted its imprint, steadily recovering to its uninjured state.

It was now trying to get away from Blood Vulture Dominator Fist. Earlier, Cassius and Blood Vulture Dominator Fist had alternated strikes to prevent Xiadu from freely using the imprint.

They were about to succeed, but Xiadu had used its trump card, directly invoking the giant palm above the blood moons for a strike and forcing Cassius to intercept. That had created a flaw in their control of the battle’s tempo. Seizing the flaw, Xiadu broke free at once and restored itself.

Blood Vulture Dominator Fist and Xiadu suddenly traded punches. A crimson figure surged in pursuit, and the black meteor flew backward.

Now that the black smoke was drifting away, Xiadu's somewhat blurred face was visible. However, there was no joy on its face. The giant palm upon the blood moons was indeed Xiadu's real hand, an existence independent of its projection. When the projection had been cornered, the palm could break the situation instantly.

Whether by surprise attack to kill its foe or by granting the projection a brief respite to trigger the imprint and recover, unlike the projection, each use of the giant palm consumed Xiadu's Will and directly affected its true body.

Regardless of how Xiadu’s projection fought, it expended nothing thanks to the imprint ability. Yet once the projection hit a crisis and the giant palm had to bail it out, Xiadu's body would incur a massive cost.

The palm had been used twice already. Since it was crossing realms, the consumption of Xiadu's Will was also no small thing. At the moment, Xiadu and Cassius both felt how thorny their opponent was.

"Then we can only see who can endure more..."

Cassius and Xiadu's gazes met across thousands of meters in the battlefield. Clearly, Xiadu had resolved to wield the palm and utterly crush Cassius at any cost ! On the other side, Cassius meant the same. He was going to trade blows with that palm!

Xiadu's Will had crossed realms, its body was wounded, and White Bird's mark still entangled it. If it spent too much in the World of Calamity and could not suppress its body's injuries, then things would get very interesting!

"Come!" The Golem roared, as black flames blazed over him.

Boom!

As if answering Cassius's surging Will, the two blood moons fused even more and the scaled giant palm swelled bigger! Five fingers extended as terrifying calamity energy geysered forth.

Bam! Bang, bang...

The giant palm slapped down, suppressing the Golem all the way into the World of Calamity's dirt. The land shifted, mountains toppled, and giant trenches became rifts.

Cassius braced himself with his arms. His eyes seemed to spit fire as fine cracks appeared on his arms. Jets of blood-mist spurted from the cracks, then evaporated in the heat.

The third palm... He had taken it!

In the distance, a crimson and a black figure were still battling at top speed. Rings of shockwaves and gold-red sparks burst from their clashes. The black figure suddenly turned away, ignoring the blood-shadow to focus again on directing the giant palm.

"Not dead!? Then take another palm!!!"

Boom! Boom! Boom!

In the vault of heaven, the two blood moons ground ever further into each other, until only one last sliver remained unfused. Evil surged from the scaled giant palm. Each scale was like a black eye staring at Cassius.

Fear! Evil! Despair! The aura that pressed down was the very picture of intimidation.

But would Cassius fear? Absolutely not!

He had even faced Xiadu's true body in the fifth time-travel, fresh from the Gates of Heaven without fear or despair. How much lesser was a mere projection in the World of Calamity?

Ridiculous! Trying to scare me with a projection?!

"Xiadu, you underestimate me..." Cassius muttered, spreading his arms as demonic flames raged.

Boom!

The palm's fourth strike crashed down. Black cracks traced the palm's edges as if space itself were collapsing. A vast shockwave swept the land, shaking the whole ground like waves.

A smoking pit churned beneath the palm. The residual forces around it kept annihilating the air. A charred steel hand reached up and slammed down on the pit's rim. Then, a battered, massive figure climbed up again.

"Hahahahaha..."

The Golem's helmet was twisted out of shape and its body was covered in wounds. Yet, it laughed wildly, flinging its arms wide.

A scorching breath swept beneath its wounds. The reserved life vibration energy nourished its damaged cells, restoring it at a speed visible to the naked eye. Thick white steam billowed from the wounds.

Cassius, shrouded in steam, slowly took an offensive stance. His heavy feet gathered force and his shoulders rose high. Passive defense was not his style. This time, Cassius would take the initiative!

The Golem soared into the air, trailing white steam. Boundless malice and unstoppable dominance erupted!

"The fifth attack will be mine!"

Xiadu's projection stared sharply at the scene before it. Its pupils reflected the giant palm across the sky and a black meteor streaking toward it. Its Will boiled violently. Never had it wanted to kill a man so badly!

Its terrible thoughts instantly linked to the twin moons.

"Fifth palm!"

Ding!

Above the dome, the two blood moons fully overlapped. A passage seemed to open wide as the barrier between worlds vanished. Suddenly a vast, terrifying Will pressed through!

Boom!

Wind and cloud transformed with a turn of the palm. The palm was like god, turning the moons into a well!

In an instant, the blood moons turned black, and endless calamity bore down on Cassius!

"Fighting me? And you still dare split your focus again and again?!" Suddenly, two blood-hued pupils blazed like the sun beside Xiadu's projection. Blood Vulture Dominator Fist struck in fury, creating thousands of punching afterimages. The entire region was drowned in a terrifying barrage of fists.

In less than a heartbeat, Xiadu's projection collapsed. A second later, it appeared at a previous imprint point.

𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

Bang!

However, a fist wreathed in crimson brutally blasted it apart! Then, it appeared again at a previous imprint, only to be sliced through by a howling claw!

Xiadu died again!

Bang bang bang bang bang... die die die die die...

No one knew how many times Xiadu's projection was slain by Blood Vulture Dominator Fist!

Suddenly...

Ding!

A crisp sound swept through heaven and earth, followed by silence. It wasn't true silence, but the impact surpassed the sound barrier. As the blood moons overlapped, the strongest fifth palm covered the sky and slammed down. It collided with the terrifying Golem. Magma welled from the ground, fog billowed and a rain of stones swept!

But only one black silhouette stood amid the chaos.