Chapter 1542: The Stars Await You

Leiting Zi bowed in gratitude. "Without you, I would have been hard-pressed to deal with him alone. I welcome you to the Leiting Domain, and will personally guide you around as a host. We can finish our long-awaited battle then, too."

Leiting Zi's body slowly dissolved into a shower of light.

"You are talented with lightning. If you want to learn more advanced techniques and tread the path of lightning to its conclusion, the Leiting Domain is the place to be."

By sacrificing himself, Leiting Zi managed to take down Leiting Ya's mental avatar. For the Leiting Domain and for himself, this was certainly a worthwhile trade.

For one, Leiting Ya had already managed to cultivate a complete lightning soul within this virtual realm. If he hadn't been defeated, he would have been able to return to the real world with a pristine lightning soul, inducing a similar transformation in reality.

The combination of a physical body and a lightning soul would definitely allow him far more strength than he had displayed in the virtual realm, and the Leiting Domain wouldn't be the only force to suffer then. Perhaps the whole galaxy would have fallen prey to his ministrations, a heavy blow to the Leiting Domain's reputation.

Even if Leiting Ya were a traitor to the sect, he had been taught and groomed by the Leiting Domain.

Leiting Ya's defeat would result in a mental injury, a wound that would normally take years to heal. His lightning soul would only be incompletely transcribed to reality. Despite his experience in crafting one in the virtual realm, replicating it was no mean feat.

Even if there were potions and spiritual pills that would help restore mental damage, they were particularly costly in the fifth realm, and the supply was incredibly limited. As a result, by tracking its sales, the Leiting Domain could easily hunt down Leiting Ya.

In other words, it might well be possible for the cultivators of the Leiting Domain to hunt down and kill Leiting Ya in person.

Leiting Zi had killed Leiting Ya in this virtual realm and gotten an understanding of the power and techniques he now commanded. By revealing this information to the sect, along with the means by which Leiting Ya had derived his lightning soul, he would be given an incredible commendation. What he reaped from that priceless information might well be more valuable to him than placing among the top three of the Cup.

As Leiting Zi's body completely dissolved in light, he said, "I'll await you in the cosmos."

The man with the golden lamp raised it up high. It shone as brightly as a sun, forming a screen of light that locked in on Fang Yi. On the screen, flames of light burned. He intended to kill Fang Yi while Fang Yi was still incapacitated in order to whittle down Team Zenith's numbers.

However, he had underestimated Fang Yi's capabilities. With thirty wheels of time to his back, Fang Yi certainly wasn't about to be trapped by any ordinary screen of light.

"[Floating Clouds]!"

The wind and lightning formed a loop around Fang Yi's body.

Wind and storm surged throughout the loop, providing explosive strength. Thirty wheels of time caused a huge explosion of lightning that shattered the screen.

The man with a golden lamp shot forward, blazing with light.

[The Boundless Blade: Daybreak] flashed, the strike forming a long river through the skies. The genetic energy burst apart in a shower of droplets as spatial force shrouded the man with the golden lamp.

"Your opponent's right here. Don't you bother my teammate, now," Yang Ze said, attacking him swiftly.

Water-attuned genetic energy combined with spatial force to produce a series of spatial waves.

The man with the golden lamp was surrounded by flames of light, endowed with glowing runes. He broke through the waves by force.

"[The Boundless Blade: Dragonwhale]!" In the blink of an eye, Yang Ze was surrounded by a patch of ocean.

The lapping of waves echoed through the battlefield. They grew and grew, reaching a crescendo and rising into the sky like a tsunami, manifesting in the form of a huge whale.

𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

The whale's body was long and streamlined, with long whiskers and scales patterning its body. As it flipped over, pale-blue genetic energy exploded in layers, blocking the man's attacks.

The sapphire-blue scorpion struck at Fang Yi, its tail wet and gleaming with toxins.

Fang Yi stepped back and avoided the scorpion's stinger as Sun Xiaowu rushed out, his fist clenched.

"[Goldenscale Palm: Split]!"

Golden radiance struck. Sun Xiaowu's palms brimmed with golden light as a dense layer of golden scales covered his skin.

His divine armaments manifested on each scale, which was imbued with golden runes.

His aura suddenly shifted, and his right arm glowed with resplendent light.

An aura of intense strength emanated from the heavens.

Sun Xiaowu took a step forward, then punched with all his might, generating a dominating wave of genetic energy.

The altar was in chaos.

The jade mantis' scythes were incredibly sharp. They chopped up everything in its vicinity.

"[Light Dragon's Remnants]!"

Li Feng marshaled his genetic energy into the form of a large number of white dragons, which swooped toward the jade mantis even as it began to slice them apart.

A sword struck the golden lamp in a flurry of sparks. Divine flames roared; the sea roiled. A huge crack appeared in the void, causing space around it to collapse. Everyone in the vicinity would be in danger.

Suddenly, in a flash of holy light, a scroll appeared out of nowhere.

The scroll glowed with light. A dragon's visage appeared in view.

"[Avatar of the Fae: Earthbound Prison]!"

Zhou Ying released all her stored vitality at once, causing the ground to quake as thousands of jade-green wood dragons rushed out of the earth. Each dragon was about six hundred meters wide, with skin flecked with golden radiance.

Thousands of wood dragons soared into the air, coiling around and binding the dragon that had emerged from the scroll.

A silver arrow shot toward the dragon, only to be deflected in the air.

"[Storm of Leaves: Void Cut]!"

Zhou Ying made her move, clutching her dagger in one hand. She slashed at the void with her black dagger, cutting apart the silver arrow.

A beast howled. There seemed to be yet another guardian beast in the ancient hall that had been lying in wait until now. It leapt into the air, preparing to strike.

"[Blinding Flash: Thousandfold Echo]!"

Sun Xiaowu's body split into over a thousand clones, so many they seemed to fill the sky. Each was simultaneously real and illusory.

The thousands of clones struck all around them, blocking the attacks that came from every direction.

"[Goldenscale Palm: Golden Qilin]!" Sun Xiaowu and all his clones leapt up into the air, performing exactly the same action. Golden light flashed from their arms and illuminated the sky. Tens of thousands of clones merged into Sun Xiaowu's main body, and the countless activated copies of the technique merged into one.

"Scram!"

Golden scales covered up Sun Xiaowu's arm as it grew thicker and thicker, and the image of a golden qilin appeared behind him.

He rushed forward, golden scales appearing over his arm as he punched at his opponent.

The beast suddenly exploded within the void, transforming into a mist of blood.

A sword came at Sun Xiaowu from the back, wickedly sharp and manifested from mental energy, intending to pierce him clean through.