Chapter 1225: The Strongest Technique

Zhang Lie dispelled everything with a single punch. Fang Yi's tenfold attack vanished in an instant.

Zhang Lie urged with a huff, "Hey, don't just stand there in a daze! Keep going! I could have killed you a hundred times over during that time!"

Fang Yi laughed wryly. "Is there a purpose to continuing?"

Fang Yi hadn't given up even when he fought off Ghroth, an entity of disaster incarnate.

Fang Yi hadn't given up even when he fought against a seemingly superior foe during the king of chaos' banquet.

But against Zhang Lie's unreasonable strength, Fang Yi found himself defeated, unable to rouse any battle intent whatsoever.

Most importantly, Fang Yi knew that Zhang Lie was far from using his full strength.

In other words, Fang Yi's will to fight had been quashed.

Zhang Lie frowned. "Would an enemy let you go just because you said continuing would be meaningless? Would Ghroth have avoided killing you?"

Fang Yi replied, "But Captain, you're not an enemy!"

"If you aren't able to muster up the drive to grow stronger, to fight even against unfavorable odds, how will you survive in the fourth realm? You might as well stay in the third realm and never ascend!"

The harsh criticism shocked Fang Yi.

Zhang Lie continued, "Think back to your foundational reason for growing strong."

Fang Yi recalled why he had created his sixfold strike, even his ninefold strike. All that he had done was in hopes of catching up to the person before him. Now that that person was right in front of him and facing him, how could he back down?

He knew that the sixfold strike would be devastating not just for his enemy but also for him. If he were the slightest bit careless and misjudged the equilibrium of energies, the backlash could strike him as hard as the attack would strike his enemy. Even so, Fang Yi had put his life on the line.

"If you truly want to grow stronger," Zhang Lie continued, "then keep fighting until you collapse!"

Fang Yi's eyes again turned resolute. "I apologize, Captain. Thank you for jolting me awake and reigniting my desire to grow strong."

He hadn't been scared of Zhang Lie despite Zhang Lie's overwhelming strength back in the second realm; why would he falter in the third?

"To demonstrate my gratitude, my next technique will have 120% of my maximum strength. This is truly my strongest blow."

Fang Yi's expression turned serious. He sucked in a breath. His spear took on the aspects of time and age. Temporal winds buffeted the spear, and a mysterious light began to circle the spear like lightning.

"[Wheel of Time]!"

Wheels of time stacked up on Fang Yi's back, but Zhang Lie didn't make a move. He waited patiently as Fang Yi laid his preparations. With his spear in hand, Fang Yi again returned to the frozen world of gray, with him the only spot of color within.

"[Spear of Fate]!" Wind and storm combined and crackled at the tip of Fang Yi's spear, imbuing it with sharpness and penetrating strength beyond measure.

Fang Yi compressed that energy again and again, until even the space around the spear started getting sucked in. The tip of the spear punched through space as though it were nothing more than paper.

The chaotic energy imbued within the spear activated, gushing out around Fang Yi.

The combination of elemental, chaotic, and spatiotemporal energy at the tip of the spear multiplied the strength of Fang Yi's attack beyond what should have been possible.

Golden threads surrounded wind, storm, time, and space.

Fang Yi combined [Born of Lightning, Swallowed by the Wind], [Tiger's Howl, Dragon's Bellow], [Heaven's Judgment], and the power of karma—wind, storm, time, space, chaos, karma. All these sources of energy were stacked together, like buff after buff.

A dragon of purple lightning and tiger of green wind, shielded by a barrier of time and shrouded by black spatial energy, slowly began to manifest. Storm winds were sucked into the mix.

The power of his strike transcended both of its constituents, time and karma.

The strike touched the notion of fate, that all things were predetermined in the long, winding river of time.

The combination of wind and storm, spatial force, void lightning, time and space, karma and fate—all of it combined into a hurricane. The nine different kinds of energy stacked on top of each other and were refined into a cocoon.

As Fang Yi infused more and more of his own energy into the attack, the energies morphed into threads of nine different colors that began to separate.

The void lightning combined with the spatial rift that was forming and tore apart the space around Fang Yi.

Against the ninefold confluence of energies, even the reinforced high-dimensional space seemed liable to collapse.

The manifold energies merged and tangled with each other, space and time, wind and storm, chaos and fate, the beginning and the end.

Fang Yi sent a stream of each type of energy swirling and corkscrewing around the tip of his spear.

The combination of nine energies gave birth to an astounding hybrid. As the forces continued to revolve around each other, the wheels of time behind Fang Yi began rotating more and more quickly as the space around him was strained to its utmost. The pocket dimension began to crack.

Even the king of chaos' spear shook violently as it tried to sustain the nine different energies. Fang Yi himself wasn't doing well. Veins protruded from his forehead as he forcibly used a technique beyond his ability to support. Blood seeped out of his orifices, and his bones began to creak.

The golden threads of karma, which turned black and tried to wrap around Fang Yi, were swept away by the energy of chaos.

Chaos muddled fate, turning bad karma into more strength for his attack.

Lightning crackled like a demon swiping its claws. A storm raged, and space tore apart. Black-and-gold chains criss-crossed and tangled up under the influence of chaos and fate.

Zhang Lie's eyes widened. After the incorporation of karma, the energy of chaos was able to reach an unstable equilibrium with that of space and time.

Karma forcibly linked all the disparate energies together like glue.

This glue, however, was poisonous. It would have affected Fang Yi's fated future if not for the chaotic energy surrounding him. Most importantly, the chaotic energy came from Fang Yi's spear, not from himself, and the powers of karma and chaos wouldn't cancel out.

The spear of Chaos would continuously provide titanic amounts of chaotic energy, forcibly maintaining this unstable balance.

"Truly incredible."

Perhaps the king of chaos had anticipated this possibility when he forged Fang Yi his spear...