Book 6, Chapter 70: Stalemate! Danger!
The Sovereign’s Graveyard.
That was the name that Su Chen had come up with for the Abyss’ exit.
At this point, Su Chen had already gathered more than half of the Sovereign statues there. The Void Starmetal that he had drained from them all was enough to make a small mountain, construct a few dozen pieces of spatial equipments, or buy an entire country.
The disappearance of the Sovereign statues caused the giant whale to feel particularly uneasy.
After all, this graveyard was basically its home. And to it, each Sovereign statue was equivalent to a decoration in its home.
But now, a thief was constantly robbing him.
This thief was exceptionally fast. The whale was always unable to catch him, and could only watch him slip through its hands time and time again. This made it very angry.
Even so, no matter how angry it became, it was never able to prevent the statues from being stolen away.
As such, its angry howls could regularly be heard echoing throughout the void.
Today, that damned bastard had appeared yet again.
The giant whale didn’t even bother attacking, because it knew of its opponent’s speed firsthand. That annoying teleportation ability guaranteed that this slippery bastard would escape. Even if it was a Sovereign capable of controlling the space in this region, it still wouldn’t be able to prevent Su Chen from escaping.
Thus, the giant whale elected to not pay too much attention to its opponent.
But even though the giant whale had every intention of ignoring Su Chen, Su Chen refused to do the same.
He flew towards the giant whale and jeeringly called out, “Hey, I’m back.”
The giant whale glared coldly at him. Its massive eyeballs rolled in their sockets for a brief moment before it spat out a wave of energy.
This casual attack was basically the equivalent of it reaching out to swat at a fly.
In this giant whale’s mind, its opponent was about to teleport away yet again.
To its great surprise, however, its wave of energy was stopped in its tracks. Its opponent stood there, suspended in the void, still face-to-face with it.
This surprised the giant whale quite a bit.
This little thief seemed to be exceptionally energetic today!
It squinted its eyes slightly and began to swim towards Su Chen.
Su Chen remained motionless.
He wasn’t running?
The giant whale began to grow excited for the first time in a while as its aura surged. A powerful storm of energy began to brew around it.
“ROAR!”
The whale bellowed loudly. This roar was imbued with an intrinsic destructive potential, and the waves of sound undulated in Su Chen’s direction.
Su Chen calmly withstood the pressure rolling over him. “You probably feel quite upset about not being able to fight me for such a long time, right? Well, here’s your chance to finally get your fill.”
He made a casual gesture. A giant streak of purple lightning appeared in the air, took the form of a long spear, and then shot off towards the giant whale.
The giant whale bellowed again as it whipped up a violent storm in response.
The wind and lightning collided with each other before scattering in a flash of light. These attacks were mere precursors to the epic battle that was about to unfold.
In terms of pure energy, the giant whale Sovereign held the absolute advantage.
It was a king amongst Beasts, and its strength could not be disdained. This giant whale was more than capable of annihilating most living creatures on the Primordial Continent. In addition, because it was a spatial creature, its speed in the void was exceptionally quick as well.
Its massive figure rumbled through the air, tearing through the void and leaving afterimages in its wake. In a true frontal fight, its imposing manner was quite shocking.
Unfortunately, there were no mountain ranges in the void. Otherwise, they probably would have collapsed from just the ripples of its power.
In this empty void, the only signs of their great battle were the swaths of flames and streaks of lightning dancing within a storm of wind. And this was further diminished by the fact that both parties’ attacks were dissipating almost instantaneously. As such, this battle was actually quite small in terms of its scale.
But just because the scale was small didn’t necessarily mean that the danger was too.
There was no real room for long-range attacks within the void. If they fought, it had to be a close-quarters exchange to see whose skills were stronger.
After reaching the Thought Manifestation Realm, Su Chen’s personal strength had increased significantly.
In the first place, humanity’s Origin Skill cultivation system was fundamentally tied to improvement. The higher an individual’s cultivation base, the more robust their vitality. Thus, the vitality of a Thought Manifestation Realm cultivator was exceptionally high. And because Su Chen was also a Tenth-Ring Arcana Master, his Arcana Techniques, which possessed incredibly potent offensive capabilities, were no weaker than a Sovereign’s attacks.
Before his breakthrough, Su Chen’s defenses had been inferior to the whale’s, making it so that he didn’t dare face the Sovereign’s attacks head-on.
But now that he had reached the Thought Manifestation Realm, Su Chen’s previous weakness had been mitigated quite significantly. He was no longer afraid of the giant whale Sovereign, and the two of them immediately began exchanging blows.
One Tenth-Ring Arcana Technique after another was unleashed. A pair of wings unfurled from Su Chen’s back yet again as the wind, thunder, and fire Arcana Techniques that he had learned slammed violently into the giant whale.
His Thought Manifestation Realm cultivation base, meanwhile, was primarily playing the defensive role.
The Seven Bloodline Microcosm appeared yet again. The jade-colored sea stretched out to the horizon as the sun began to rise.
Not only was its might greater, but Su Chen’s Seven Bloodline Microcosm now contained an additional Aspect as well.
This Aspect could be seen within the sun rising from the sea.
Formerly, the sun had only been a circle of red light with no actual physical substance.
Now, however, this red sun radiated an intense heat, further increasing the microcosm’s grandiose aura. Upon closer inspection, it was possible to see a three-legged golden bird within the sun.
When the three-legged bird unfurled its wings, the sun would begin to rise, and thousands of light rays would shoot out in all directions.
The giant whale had spat out a dense swath of corrosive fog earlier. When the light rays collided with the fog, they easily dispersed it.
The Golden Bird Bloodline!
Su Chen’s Seven Bloodline Microcosm had finally incorporated the Golden Bird Bloodline. In total, four Aspects had now been successfully combined.
The microcosm’s power enveloped Su Chen, protecting him from all attacks. The whale Sovereign quickly discovered that, even with its colossal power, it was incapable of breaching Su Chen’s defenses.
It howled furiously as it charged madly in Su Chen’s direction. Su Chen, however, held his ground as if he were a mountain.
No — a mountain would have been destroyed, but Su Chen would not be moved.
He towered majestically in midair, withstanding every attack from the giant whale.
After he reached the Thought Manifestation Realm, he had opened his Yin and Yang, which meant that the Origin Energy within his body was perpetually revolving, resulting in a never-ending flow. As long as he didn’t use any forbidden techniques, he would likely be able to continue fighting until the universe collapsed in on itself.
And the Seven Bloodline Microcosm had greatly increased Su Chen’s defense. Every one of the whale’s attacks was significantly weakened by the Seven Bloodline Microcosm before being easily deflected by Su Chen’s magic barriers. The remaining momentum that did make it through was easily withstood by Su Chen’s physical body.
On the other hand, Su Chen’s attacks were slowly but surely accumulating damage on the giant whale.
Even though the whale’s skin was incredibly tough and thick, and Tenth-Ring Arcana Techniques could only wound it, the neverending barrage of attacks was causing its wounds to build up, and it was starting to suffer quite heavily.
Su Chen’s fighting intent had been aroused. He gestured with his hands, and a massive Flaming Phoenix Theurgy Art appeared.
This was Su Chen’s flagship technique.
However, the phoenix had transformed yet again. The Flaming Phoenix’s body was now augmented with layers of violent wind, which caused its flames to burn even more vigorously. The phoenix’s claws also glowed with radiant lightning. Its aura was significantly more fearsome than it was before.
This powerful Arcana Technique combined three elements - wind, thunder, fire - and had already transcended the realm of a Tenth-Ring Arcana Technique.
A legendary Arcana Technique!
Only legendary Arcana Masters could use legendary Arcana Techniques. Su Chen was not a legendary Arcana Master, but his comprehension of Method Power had allowed him to break through that restriction and unleash these powerful attacks all the same.
The Flaming Phoenix was almost as large as the Sovereign. It let out a keening cry as light radiated from its body.
“Taste the fury of the elements,” Su Chen muttered to himself as he made a shoving gesture with his hand. The Flaming Phoenix soared into the air.
The Sovereign could sense the threat that this phoenix posed to it.
Earlier, it had felt helpless when attacking Su Chen, like a human facing a towering mountain. Now, this legendary Arcana Technique threatened him like an incomparably sharp blade.
A true threat, a threat that was more than capable of killing it!
In that moment, the giant whale Sovereign roared and retreated.
It retreated!
It didn’t dare to tackle this attack head-on.
At the same time that it retreated, it continued to form vortex after vortex of air from its mouth.
These vortexes were somewhat similar to the spatial storms wreaking havoc in the void. Their destructive capabilities were unrivaled, and they were even capable of nullifying Arcana Techniques and Origin Skills. If it weren't for the fact that Su Chen had ascended to the Thought Manifestation Realm, he would have been killed by these attacks no matter how powerful he was.
The giant phoenix flew through the air at high speeds, tearing through the vortexes without stopping. Even after one-third of its body had been eaten up, it collided with the giant whale, causing an explosion of light. The whale bellowed with pain as a massive, gaping hole appeared on its body.
Fresh blood flowed into the void and immediately dissolved into thin air due to the void’s destructive properties.
Even so, it had somehow managed to survive the attack.
“Not bad. Can you handle another one?” Su Chen began to gather another Flaming Phoenix.
The giant whale wasn’t afraid to take a stand and continued to unleash these vortexes of wind. It was even able to form a few void spears and launch them at Su Chen, taking advantage of the opportunity to counterattack.
The fight had reached its climax at this point, and both parties were fully immersed in battle.
Su Chen unleashed Flaming Phoenix after Flaming Phoenix. The giant whale’s destructive vortexes banded together to form a giant storm that surged towards Su Chen.
The giant whale had been badly wounded by the Flaming Phoenix, but even so, marks of decay began to appear on Su Chen’s body despite the fact that he had the Seven Bloodline Microcosm protecting him.
The two parties were now locked in a struggle for life and death, and Su Chen could sense his own Origin Energy reserves beginning to decline - unleashing legendary Arcana Techniques was simply draining too much of his energy, and even a perpetual flow of Origin Energy wasn’t enough to sustain this kind of output.
Of course, the giant whale was not exactly in a better spot. Its Origin Energy was also quite limited.
However, which one of them would be able to last until the end was hard to say.
If anyone else were there to witness this battle, their eyeballs would have probably already popped out of their sockets.
No matter how you looked at it, Su Chen’s opponent was a Sovereign!
A creature that stood at the peak of creation.
And Su Chen wasn’t even an Ultimate Emperor Realm cultivator or a legendary Arcana Master.
He had not reached the peak of either cultivation system, but even so, he was able to fight against a Sovereign amongst emperors purely based on his own strength.
This kind of power was impossible to not be amazed by.
Unfortunately, no one was there to witness this display of power. The human race’s perception of Su Chen was still that of a sage, not a warrior.
Su Chen himself didn’t really care. The most important task at hand was to finish this guy off. Even though he had more than proven himself capable of jumping realms, he was only able to draw even with a Sovereign.
The two of them were already beginning to grow tired. Even now, it was still hard to say who would be able to hold out until the bitter end.
However, there was one factor that was working against Su Chen - as time went on, the corrosive power of the void was affecting him more and more.
If both of them were to fully exhaust their strength, the whale would be able to survive due to its innate affinity for the void. Su Chen, however, would definitely disintegrate under the void’s destructive power.
No, it was more likely that he would become a statue made out of Void Starmetal.
This battle was incredibly dangerous!