Chapter 367: Constellation Cessation
Tai Wuling only heard silence. Although he didn't like Monarch Nine Heavens, he had never denied the latter's power. Now, you tell him that Monarch Nine Heavens was actually that detestable Xi Tianyi, and this was nothing more than a play between Xi Tianyi and his clone?!
"Wuling, calm down, he's trying to rile you up!" Yang Linyin attempted to calm him down, but white-hot fury had clouded his mind.
As if he hadn't added enough fuel to the fire, Ba Shifang continued. "Well, I guess I shouldn't expect much from a coward that forces others to fight his battles when he loses."
"YOU BASTARD!!!" Tai Wuling said, any shred of sanity gone. Lights correlating to the five elements exploded off of him as his qi's power drastically rose to the Half-Emperor level.
Ba Shifang grinned. He quickly formed several hand seals, and the moment Tai Wuling entered a hundred meters of him, a circle with a five-pointed star appeared below him. At the point of each star, five incarnations of Ba Shifang dressed in red, black, yellow, green, and white robes respectively appeared.
The five incarnations pointed their fingers at Tai Wuling, and chains formed of fire, water, earth, wood, and metal shot out and grabbed his arms, legs, and neck. With a tug, Tai Wuling was shackled in place.
Yang Linyin moved to help, but the Buzhou Immortal Sect's war formations stopped her. A few of the nearby Eight Pillar Sect's war formations also came to her aid, but most were occupied by the Anti-Earth Alliance's war formations.
Outnumbered and outgunned, Yang Linyin still tried her best. "Dissolve and form the Eight Trigrams War Formation!"
The Eight Pillar Sect needed not quantity but quality at this time. Their strategic goal should be to retreat and regroup at the Eight Pillar Sect and plan their next step from there. The Buzhou Immortal Sect's betrayal came at the worst time possible for them.𝒃𝒆𝙙𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝙡．𝙤𝒓𝙜
Emperor Infinity had made backup plans in case the Buzhou Immortal Sect did betray them, but they were based on the premise of all the Eight Pillar Sect's forces gathered and when they engaged in battle with the Anti-Earth Alliance. He thought the Buzhou Immortal Sect wanted to play the oriole eyeing the mantis and cicada, but he never expected the Buzhou Immortal Sect to spring a betrayal before the battle even began.
Still, that relied on the fact that the Anti-Earth Alliance and Buzhou Immortal Sect would not stop them. The moment the attack began, the Anti-Earth Alliance had already set up a massive containment formation stalling their escape. It was a weak formation, but that couldn't be helped since laying the groundwork would alert the Eight Pillar Sect ahead of time.
Ten percent of the true immortals instantly died the moment they dissolved the formation, and another five percent perished before Yang Linyin managed to form the Eight Trigrams Emperor War Formation. Thus, although it was an emperor war formation, it was closer to the half-emperor level.
The Eight Trigrams War Formation relied on yang, yin, fire, water, earth, wood, and metal qi. If any one of them were missing, the war formation would not form. Currently, they only have true immortals supplying the wood qi, and without a monarch to control it, the war formation's power has diminished.
"Wuling, hurry up and enter the formation!" Yang Linyin shouted. "As long as you enter, the war formation's power will rise to another level!"
Yang Linyin charged forward, intent on freeing Tai Wuling, but the Eight Trigrams Emperor War Formation faltered. The control was thrown into disarray, and there was a dissonance in intent and realized movements. "What's going on?!"
"What? Many of our true immortals are suffering soul attacks?!" Yang Linyin shouted. She immediately recalled what happened during the attack on the Allbeast Sect. "Jiang Daoyi!"
"Attack, flush her out! She can't be too far!" The Eight Trigrams Emperor War Formation started unleashing attacks of yin, yang, fire, water, earth, wood, and metal indiscriminately. It didn't care for the state of the land, not that the region they came to fight on had much in the first place. The barren state was the reason why both parties chose it, after all.
While Yang Linyin dealt with the Buzhou Immortal Sect's war formations and Jiang Daoyi's musical attacks, Tai Wuling regained clarity. "You're draining me of my qi!? Do you think it will be that easy!"
Ba Shifang said nothing as the elemental chains continued to absorb Tai Wuling's qi. At the same time, spells of fire, water, earth, wood, metal, and lightning bombarded Tai Wuling. To add insult to injury, they were fueled by his own qi.
"Bastard!" Tai Wuling. "You can't even leave a mark on my body. You should just give up. Even if Xi Tianyi were to come, the results would be the same!"
Ba Shifang finally broke his silence with a sigh, "Oh, I doubt that. I admit, your flesh is incredibly difficult to deal with, but as long as I exhaust you of your qi, wouldn't you be a fish on the chopping block?"
Tai Wuling opened his mouth again, but Ba Shifang didn't let him speak as the chain around his neck crept up and gagged him. "And don't say that I can only use this cheap trick. This is just the easiest method I chose. The price to pierce your flesh is not worth risking my life for."
Qi spiked from Tai Wuling, as his vision nearly turned red, as white-hot fury clouded his judgment. He bit his lips until they bled, the pain returning clarity to him. He didn't know why he couldn't control his anger well anymore, but losing his cool would likely cause him to fall into an even worse predicament.
He closed his eyes and entered his sea of consciousness. He originally didn't want to use this early and save it as a trump card, but he had no choice now. The Wuxing Core in his mind began to thrum and spin.
Outside, Ba Shifang frowned. His Five Element Refining Formation had stopped working. Not only was it no longer absorbing qi from Tai Wuling, but the process had become reversed. It only took a split second to dissolve the formation. Since it no longer worked, why bother leaving any benefits for the opponent?
An illusionary giant over ten thousand meters manifested and covered Tai Wuling. The giant had the lower half of a man, two arms—each of the arms was formed by one of the five elements and constantly cycled between them. Still, the strangest part was its head, which was a sphere floating above its stump of a neck.
Ba Shifang felt a strange oppression from the sphere-headed giant. "Just what is that thing? It's giving off a pressure like Nuyi."
The sphere had no eyes, but he instinctively knew that it was staring at him. "Die, you insect!"
Before he could dodge, fire erupted from one arm and had already reached and grabbed him within its palm. Explosions erupted from within the hand as Tai Wuling's grip tightened. Just as everyone thought he had perished, a five-colored light erupted from the fire fist.
The five-colored light coalesced into a giant humanoid nearly equal to the sphere-headed giant in height. It had the regular shape of a human, but it was covered in rocks, and between the cracks, lights of five colors radiated. On its head, it had five eyes correlating to the five elements.
"Don't think you are comparable to me just because you can make a giant now!" Tai Wuling shouted as his two arms cycled through the five elements and clashed against Ba Shifang’s five-element giant.
"Just shut up already!" Ba Shifang said. The five eyes on the five-element giant lit up and shot five beams that merged into one. Supreme Chaos Cannon - Solo Version.
Tai Wuling released the five-element giant and stumbled a few steps back. After stopping, he charged again. "You bastard!"
It was a literal clash of titans. Just the aftereffects of their battle caused unlucky true immortals to perish in battle. The two's power had reached the half-emperor threshold, and some of their attacks even surpassed it and reached the emperor level.
Yang Linyin gripped their hands until their knuckles turned white and nails pierced their palm. They blinked and calmed themself. They could still remember when Tai Wuling had not become a true immortal, yet less than a thousand years later, he had already reached this level. If he continued, he might even break Xi Mengfei's record of the youngest to become an immortal emperor.
"Stop gawking, let's clean up the Buzhou Immortal Sect traitors while Wuling distracts them!" Yang Linyin commanded. She directed the Eight Trigrams Emperor War Formation forward, battling against the Buzhou Immortal Sect War Formations and the Five Phase Rangers.
The two sides exchanged hundreds of blows. Just as it seemed that it would escalate, it suddenly stopped as all of them —Tai Wuling and Ba Shifang included—directed their attention to another location. A massive Eight Trigrams War Formation that dwarfed the sphere-headed and five-element giants appeared.
"Fools," Emperor Infinity's voice boomed from the Eight Trigrams Sovereign War Formation. "Did you forget that our Eight Pillar Sect has another emperor? Attacking it will only cause you to lose all the immortals you sent unless you dispatch Sword Sovereign Xi to lead it. But you won't, because the Anti-Heaven is watching you closely. Honestly, it's amazing that you dare to attack us while still embroiled in your own war."
Standing in front of the Eight Trigrams Sovereign War Formation were the Eternal Night Emperor and Zhang Cuiying inside her Voidink Emperor War Formation. She was still a distance away from the peak of the Extremity Immortal Realm; thus, she used her Voidink Scroll to form a war formation that brought her to the peak of the Extremity Immortal Realm in terms of qi.
"You don't have to worry about that," Zhang Cuiying answered. "We only sent one person. He might not be able to defeat Emperor Soulsilk, but it's more than enough to destroy the Eight Pillar Sect."
After this, the two sides resumed fighting. Although it seemed that the Eight Pillar Sect held the upper hand, to form the Eight Trigrams Sovereign War Formation, they had to use nearly half their forces, causing the number of forces to plummet. If the Anti-Earth Alliance and Buzhou Immortal Sect had outnumbered them two-to-one, they now outnumbered them four-to-one.
"Hear that?" Tai Wuling taunted. "You said that Xi Tianyi was the only one at the Eight Pillar Sect. What a joke, our grand elder is going to kill him. Even if you are a clone, I want to see how unaffected you'd be once he dies!"
Ba Shifang sighed. "So noisy, stop talking and just fight!"
Tianyi stood high above the Eight Pillar Sect. In fact, he was so high that he nearly touched the dimension boundary of the Huang Realm, and the Eight Pillar Sect was smaller than a speck of dust from his view. He held his chin. "Am I being too careful? Whatever."
He raised his hands above his head, and a massive amount of immortal qi of primordial chaos rose from his palm. The qi turned silver and gold, forming a miniature sun that shifted between the two colors, but the qi didn't stop. It radiated the aura of spacetime.
The immortal qi of primordial chaos split into two strands: one became the immortal qi of yang and the other immortal qi of yin. The two radiated the aura of the incomplete Law of Yin and the Law of Yang and formed a miniature planet that orbited around the silver and gold sun.
A second planet formed, but this time radiated an aura of chaos. The immortal qi of five-elements formed the third planet and resembled earth, while the fourth planet radiated the aura of death and incomplete life. Following that, the immortal qi of tribulation lightning formed the fifth miniature planet, while the sixth to eighth spheres resembled the second planet in that they exuded the aura of chaos.
"It's a bit incomplete, but it should be enough to wipe the Eight Pillar Sect off the face of the Huang Realm," Tianyi said. A few breaths passed, and Tianyi didn't take any action, only continuing to stare at it. "Just to be safe."
Tianyi infused more qi into it, causing the miniature solar system to grow tenfold. Then, he grasped his fingers together, causing them to shrink and fit into his palm like some trinket made of valuable jewels. With a flip of his hand, the spell plummeted toward the Eight Pillar Sect.
"Let's call it Constellation Cessation."
The moment the spell hit the Eight Pillar Sect's barrier, it exploded. Qi of spacetime, yin, yang, fire, water, earth, wood, metal, lightning, life, death, and much more mixed and clashed, creating chaos. From Tianyi's point of view, it was like a supernova had gone off, covering nearly five percent of the Earth Continent. Had he not condensed it, the attack would have covered over thirty percent of the continent.