Chapter 736: Inversion of Space and Time

Lightning fell from the sky. The waterfall of lightning that coalesced on Duan Zisuan imbued him with the energy of lightning, and his authority as king of the realm, in combination with the lightning and fire he controlled, allowed him to generate more and more void lightning.

Realizing that his authority wouldn't be able to produce void lightning quickly enough, Duan Zisuan gritted his teeth and filled his own body with that spatial energy, transforming himself into a living furnace.

Duan Zisuan was putting his very life on the line. His body cried out in pain; blood seeped out of his mouth and nose. Even a king's body found it difficult to tolerate such a vicious act—but it was doubtlessly the best decision Duan Zisuan could have made.

Against an existence like Zhang Lie, Duan Zisuan had no choice but to gamble on a slight chance at life.

He clasped his hands together, his wrists aligned and his fingers spread out. Red flames burst forth from his palms, forming the shape of a Suanni. Void lightning revolved around him and turned his surroundings to the darkness of space.

The pale blue flames condensed over the void lightning as Duan Zisuan compressed it again and again until it was nothing more than a frightening pinprick of darkness.

Space began to warp around the lightning singularity.

This was the same technique Duan Zisuan had used earlier, but it had been completely overhauled and enhanced by the use of higher-tier ingredients. Before, Duan Zisuan's projectile had been 'mere' compressed lightning and hot flame, but now, he was using void lightning and pale blue flame.

The combination of these two exotic materials would produce far more devastating an attack.

As the projectile shot toward Zhang Lie, heaven and earth shook. An apocalypse descended on the world. The blue flame and black lightning morphed into a gigantic dragon, a dragon of the apocalypse.

Zhang Lie stretched out a finger. The void lightning surrounding him likewise began to revolve and condense atop the finger, forming an orb the size of a thumb, which he then shot out toward Duan Zisuan.

Small though it might be, the orb contained immense energy. It rotated violently as though it were a drill, distorting space and forming a translucent layer of wind all around it. Everything in its path was annihilated, even the apocalyptic dragon that Duan Zisuan had produced.

The moment the orb impacted the dragon, the dragon's entire body exploded.

Bolts of void lightning flew through the air, raining pale blue flame across the land. The void darkness cleared, returning light to the land.

Duan Zisuan couldn't believe his eyes—his strongest attack, with the strongest materials he could generate and control, had lost to a thumb-sized orb of void lightning?!

Duan Zisuan howled. His emotions were in turmoil; without thinking, he reached out and tried to grab the orb of lightning, hoping to divest it of Zhang Lie's control.

Only when his fingers touched that orb did he realize why it possessed so much penetrating power—because this orb of lightning was far denser and rotating far more quickly than anything he could produce.

In other words, no matter how much Duan Zisuan tried to manipulate his lightning, it was essentially a block of wood, whereas Zhang Lie's compression caused the lightning to become an iron nail, one that could easily penetrate the wood given sufficient velocity.

Furthermore, the extreme speed at which the orb rotated was enough to reach the limits of natural law. The orb didn't distort space as it moved; space distorted to make it spin and move even faster.

However, this knowledge came too late for Duan Zisuan. His fingers were obliterated, and the destruction quickly spread throughout his body.

It was too late for him to regret what he had done. With another vengeful howl, Duan Zisuan covered his claws with void lightning and pale blue flame, thinking that he would be able to pry apart that orb with brute force, but its rotational velocity proved too steep a barrier to surmount.

Duan Zisuan pitted his hands against the orb and lost—but with the sacrifice of his hands, he did manage to deflect the orb's motion, sending it whizzing past his shoulder.

Having lost his strength, his vitality, and now both his arms, Duan Zisuan knew that the victor had been all but decided, but he refused to concede.

His son had been crippled, his world invaded. The mastermind stood before him, but he was incapable of doing anything about it! He roared in outrage, in defiance of common sense. Black light exploded from his body, turning himself into twin suns of void lightning and pale blue flame.

Zhang Lie could sense Duan Zisuan's rage as the two suns combined into one, producing an explosion of light so intense that all the spectators were forced to avert their eyes.

Duan Zisuan had used his very soul as fuel for this self-destructing explosion.

"Haha, haha! If nothing else, we'll die together!" With a mad laugh, he launched himself at Zhang Lie.

"It's useless!" Zhang Lie replied calmly, a counterpoint against his madness. He slashed downward with a blade.

"[Ninesoul Dragonblade—Fourth Form: Warping Space and Time]!" Zhang Lie's blade bisected what seemed to be an image of Duan Zisuan's body.

None of the spectators understood what they were seeing.

Duan Zisuan himself felt as though something vital had gone wrong with his body. The two halves of his body slowly slid apart, just like in the image Zhang Lie had cut.

Duan Zisuan's pale-blue flames all winked out as his body fell from the sky, and his self-destructing attack seemed never to have occurred.

Neither the elites of the west nor the aliens of the Milky Way could explain this phenomenon.

They understood that the king of the west was hoping to bring Zhang Lie down with him in a kamikaze attack, but all Zhang Lie did was slash at where Duan Zisuan had been. Somehow, that slash had transferred to Duan Zisuan's actual body.

Even Dong Mingxing, who considered herself adept with the sword, was stupefied…