Chapter 222: Divine Battle (Part 9)
With a skeleton palm pressing down on me, I was frozen in place, my armor shattered, my body numb, engulfed in darkness. My consciousness was blurring, but then a sound below me rang clear, like a bucket of ice-cold water poured over my head, yanking me back from the brink of oblivion!
Great…
My heart raced, and I felt a surge of energy.
So fantastic!!!
I poured all my strength into activating the Chaotic Power.
In the next moment, thick Dead Smoke erupted from beneath the skeleton palm, spreading outwards like a caffeinated octopus escaping a boiling pot, the hissing of erosion ringing in my ears. The corpse felt the pain and quickly withdrew its giant hand.
The mountain-like pressure vanished, and I could see the light again. I pushed myself up with my elbow, but every move tugged at my injuries, sending waves of pain crashing into my chest, resulting in a “pffft” as I coughed up more black mist.
No problem, I’m fine…
I didn’t have time to check how much damage had been done to my body after that palm strike. As long as my eyes could see and my ears could hear, as long as I was alive and could still move, that was enough.
With the wind howling, I quickly bowed my head to look at the Sin Barrier beneath me. The golden light shimmering in my vision dispersed and then formed again, revealing thin, cracking lines that were spreading outward at a slow pace, accompanied by a constant, crisp cracking sound.
Done for…
The Light Barrier had finally cracked!
“Roar—”
The excitement in my heart was beyond words. I couldn’t help but tilt my head back and let out a screech, unleashing every ounce of energy left in my body as I raised my distorted right arm, slamming it down like a whip onto the most concentrated fissure!
Boom!
A dull thud echoed, vibrating along with a shooting pain, and my head buzzed as my breath nearly stopped. The pain from my broken arm shot through my body like a terrifying high-voltage current, coursing through me uncontrollably, causing me to tremble uncontrollably.
No problem…
This pain is nothing!
I held my breath, forcing myself to ignore the unbearable suffering. In that instant, I felt like all my bl**d had surged to my brain, adrenaline skyrocketing. Injuries? Pain? Who cares! I was frantically swinging my broken arm, smashing at the cracking Light Barrier.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom—
The massive thudding continued, and the furious impact spread from the rock summit. The Light Barrier underneath me weakened under my reckless assault, the cracks expanded further, and in the next moment, accompanied by all the shattering sounds, the thin golden light finally broke, creating a small hole.
Done!!!
Golden shards erupted in a glorious explosion before me, my heart bursting with joy. However, the next moment, an intense wave of exhaustion hit me like a freight train, causing my body to go limp, my vision blurry as the Dead Smoke turned into thick Abyss Mud, dripping from my mouth. For a moment, I dazedly shook my head.
I can’t go down…
Pain jolted through me again, my vision once more clouding over. In my stupor, I noticed that the crack I had opened wasn’t spreading as I had imagined. Instead, it was slowly but surely healing itself at a steady pace.
Oh no…
My heart sank, and panic surged as I wedged my broken arm into the edges of the crack, attempting to thrust my head through first. However, I soon realized the opening was way too small to fit my current bulky form; getting my head in was the limit, and my shoulders would get stuck for sure.
Oh no, oh no, oh no…
Panic surged in my mind as I saw the speed of the Sin Barrier’s healing accelerate, the crack slowly closing in front of me. I desperately trembled, withdrawing my arm from the crack, wanting to smash it one more time, but my trembling arm was now uncontrollable, leaving me unable to exert force.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—
A shadow loomed above me, the piercing, scorching wind rushing in once more, and without needing to confirm, I knew that in just one second, the skeleton’s palm would come crashing down to turn me into mush.
I can’t move, I can’t dodge…
But if I take another hit, I will definitely d*e…
Anxiety, fear, anger, a whirlwind of emotions surged within me. In a split second, I had a brainwave and promptly closed my eyes.
In the next moment, my shattered armor began to fall away and decompose from my body, the massive black figure enveloped in dense smoke slowly fading. The hunger wind and fierce fire surged together as the skeleton palm descended, shattering the swirling Dead Smoke along with the body it encased. The cracked markings on the Light Barrier let out a spine-chilling “creak,” and abruptly expanded outwards by several meters!
With blinding light bursting forth, a tiny figure fell from the crack beneath the pressing skeleton palm, her hair flying all over the place as she descended toward the Deity Body.
I’ve escaped d*ath…
I made it in!!!
Boom—
Just as the exhilaration of escaping the Sin Barrier surged within me, a thunderous roar erupted from above, shaking the Light Barrier. A gust of wind howled as a terrifying impact rushed through the crack, striking the young woman’s tiny body in midair. Before she could even spread her Flame Wings, it was “bang,” and she fell heavily onto an enormous spine bone of the Deity Body.
“Ugh—”
bl**d splattered everywhere, and my head rang as though all my organs had been tossed in a blender. That fall knocked the breath out of me, my waist arching high as I gritted my teeth, struggling to relieve the desperate pain and suffocating sensation.
It’s over… my waist is broken, my waist… is broken…
Wait, maybe it’s not broken…
My lower body didn’t go numb as I imagined; though it hurt like the devil, I could still move my limbs. Realizing this, my racing heart gradually calmed down, and as I lay back on the bl**d-soaked spine, I struggled to breathe deeply and began gulping air.
“Ahhhhh!!!”
After a moment, I couldn’t help but shout, releasing the pent-up emotions boiling within me.
Now is not the time to rest…
Get up…
Come on…
I kept urging myself in my mind to get up, but my body felt like it had sunk into the depths of the ocean—heavy, numb, immovable. Each breath sent fiery pain through my chest.
In that lightning-fast moment, I had swiftly detached from the massive body, switching my consciousness back to my original form, slipping through the crack of the healing Light Barrier just in time to dodge that fatal blow, narrowly escaping.
But now, lying atop the Deity Body, smelling the iron scent of bl**d, and breathing in the fiery-hot air, that headache that had temporarily faded surged back stronger than ever, with a bizarre tingling sensation in my back and tailbone transitioning into what felt like the Infernal Fire scorching my flesh. My forehead was also feeling strange, as if something was trying to break through my skin, a sensation growing from my forehead.
What’s going on…
This has never happened before… what’s happening…
I couldn’t help but reach up to touch my forehead, and I felt a protruding little horn, short and sharp.
What the heck…
Scarlet patterns rapidly spread across my arms and body, pulsing like they were breathing. The Infernal Fire power quietly activated, swiftly mending all my injuries, and within a couple of seconds, the feeling of my bones falling apart vanished. My energy surged once again, and my mind cleared from the fog.
I think I’m sprouting horns…
But I can’t worry about that now…
I began to struggle to my feet, and just then, I heard the sound of wind rushing beside me, a sticky, slippery, and familiar slithering noise came suddenly from below my right spine.
!
Before I could turn my head, every hair on my body stood on end.
It’s those bl**d vessel tentacles!
How are they still around!!!
Instinctively, I took off running, pumping my legs as I sprinted along the spine towards the Deity’s head. The wind rushed past me, and with a few Moon Steps, I managed to gain some distance. A quick glance back revealed countless bl**d vessel tentacles, slimy and wriggling like eels, bursting forth from the flesh membranes attached to the Deity’s spine, swirling like a tornado heading straight for me.
My heart dropped, and my lips trembled slightly as I turned back, not uttering a word, unleashing all my remaining strength to accelerate my sprint.
The heart isn’t far now…
I’m about to take out this ghastly thing…
But in the next moment, I noticed the spine, sprawling like a mountain range, sprouting countless of those bl**d vessel tentacles. The tentacles twisted like snakes, dripping dark red bl**d, and with a pulse-inducing squelching sound, they released even more thin tentacles.
Those tentacles were barely fifty meters ahead, sprouting from the cracks in the spine, gradually gathering into writhing clumps of flesh that slowly morphed into humanoid shapes.
Oh, for crying out loud…
In front of my eyes, on the Deity’s spine, the humanoid shapes made from the tentacles multiplied rapidly in a short time, covering the bones in grotesque, bloody forms that made my skin crawl, leaving me feeling ice-cold as if I had fallen into an ice cave.
What in the world is all this…
A wave of dread washed over me, and I instinctively halted. My face blanched, completely at a loss for how to tackle this. But hearing the wind closing in behind me, my teeth clenched, and my expression hardened.
No matter what you are, I’ve worked hard to get here…
There’s no way I’m getting stopped now!
Whoosh, whoosh—
Dead Smoke gushed forth from me again, the scarlet patterns on my skin blazing brighter. Two blue arms emerged from the black mist, cracking back into shape with a “crunch.” I activated Moon Step, charging through the writhing, bloody humanoid mass that lay before me.
“Yaaaaah!!!”
Puff, puff, puff, puff—
My blue arms swirled wildly, slashing through the air with a frightening force, obliterating countless of those freaky things, sending bl**d and goo splattering everywhere, splashing over my face and body with sizzling sounds.
I sped up, barely able to keep my eyes open, racing through the sticky, bloody carnage like a high-speed meat grinder, pushing onward amid the flying bits and pieces.
Just hang in there…
I pushed through, covering several dozen meters, but soon my swinging arms began to feel heavy. With every step forward, sharp claws soaked in bl**d clawed at me, ripping my skin and leaving trails of crimson marks.
My arms were yanked, my clothes were tugged; those bloody hands from the attacking figures were instantly torn apart by the meat grinder I had conjured with my blue arms, devoured by the swirling smoke, yet even so, the road ahead remained strewn with shadows of bl**d, stretching out interminably.
I can push through…
I can do this…
I can—
Clang!
In the next instant, a massive clang echoed, as my sweeping blue arms were abruptly halted, my relentless assault instantly coming to a stop. I wiped the bl**d off my face, forcing my eyes to open, and what I saw ahead made my pupils sharply contract.
There was…
The running came to an abrupt halt.
In my line of sight stood a looming humanoid monster nearly three meters tall, made entirely of writhing bl**d vessels. It was utterly different from those wretched things I had torn apart before. Its disgusting flesh burned with Infernal Fire, standing like a demon at the junction of the Deity Body’s spine, with eerie, two-meter-long claws holding a black scythe radiating a dark red light, exuding a murderous aura.
And it was that scythe that had stopped my blue arm dead in its tracks.
I froze for a moment.
That’s my Captain Gray!
