"Did he run?" Heijin stared at the spot where Long Zhengqing had vanished, puzzled.
By all logic, a man who prized his status so highly would never flee.
Rumble! Right then, the ground began to quake.
For a full kilometre around Heijin, every scrap of earth turned to grit and spun at lethal speed.
"Quicksand Purgatory!" a voice rose from underground.
Heijin tried to leap away, only to feel the sand coil round his ankles; the rest of the storm of grit and gravel whipped against his body, carving his flesh.
A cold smile crossed his face. "Pathetic—mere dirt dares fight me?"
He severed his left arm. Before the limb hit the ground, a three-metre Heijin clone sprouted from the stump, then split again and again until nine stood there.
The nine instantly fused back into the first.
Million-Body Fusion!
Heijin's lips curled. "Hmph." His frame ballooned to three-and-a-half metres.
At Level Five, power undergoes a qualitative leap; doubling the number of fused bodies no longer merely doubles strength.
If a hundred-thousand-body fusion scores 10, two hundred thousand scores 11; a million barely nears 20.
But 20 was more than enough against the non-physical-type Long Zhengqing.
Bang! He ripped his left foot free and stamped down on the spinning sand.
BOOM! A deafening roar erupted.
A shockwave blasted the quicksand sky-high.
Even Long Zhengqing, still charging a killer move beneath the sand, was flung into the air.
He gazed around in bewilderment, not knowing what had happened.
"You're as laughable as your sand." Mocking words drifted from the grit.
A huge black silhouette burst through the sand and loomed before him.
Heijin's face wore contempt; both fists shot at the still-startled Long Zhengqing.
Whoosh! His massive fists tore the air and slammed home.
The brutal force sent Long Zhengqing flying—only for a third arm to sprout from Heijin's gut and seize him mid-air.
"Die!" Heijin's fists rained down like hailstones.
Bang-bang-bang!
Long Zhengqing's skin yellowed and hardened, but one punch split his cheek, blood spurting.
"Agh!" Under the barrage, bones snapped and organs ruptured; he was drenched in crimson.
'Too strong—I can't break free!'
Pummelled senseless, Long Zhengqing—already a ranged fighter—stood little chance in close combat.
Ten thousand metres above, Jiang Yan stood on the Cloud Ray's head, gazing down impassively.
Watching Heijin pummel Long Zhengqing, he smirked. "Looks like this Deputy Director will be the second Level Five Awakener to fall."
Behind him sat another Heijin, leaning against Crimson Demon, picking his nose. "Relax, master. That clone down there holds a million bodies; the deputy's finished."
"Roar!" A defiant dragon-cry rang from afar.
Jiang Yan looked up: far off, a white pillar of light lanced skyward through the storm.
He was certain—this was no move of Dragon God Margoth.
Crack! Something shattered in his coat; he drew out the yang-fallen evil seal.
It was webbed with cracks.
'Even the Dragon God is dead… time to end this.' Jiang Yan's eyes narrowed.
Level Six—he still didn't know its ceiling. If even the summoned dragon was slain, the gap from Level Five was monstrous.
With a thought, he ordered every monster to retreat—except Heijin.
He would let Heijin probe this Level Six; if it proved weak, the others would return; if strong, they'd flee.
He turned to the pillar of despair. "Your turn."
The four heads on the pillar nodded and vanished from the Cloud Ray's back.
Jiang Yan looked toward the Capital.
There, the storm had stilled; Dragon God Margoth's colossal corpse lay with a twenty-metre hole through its chest.
Bai Wenliang's clothes hung in tatters, his afro gone, scalp bald and shining.
He stood on the carcass, wiping imaginary sweat. "Little pest could really take a beating—finally dropped after all those hits."
He flexed, lightning-blackened skin flaking away.
The dragon's body began to glow, dissolving into motes of light.
Ignoring it, Bai Wenliang launched himself—
BOOM!—breaking the sound-barrier toward the mountains.
He could sense Long Zhengqing's aura fading fast.
Within the Doulin Realm, seawater now flooded everything.
Fang Wenyu and Qin Wan each wore a faint transparent halo that kept the water at bay and let them breathe.
On edge, Qin Wan glanced back, panting. "Wenyu… at this rate that monster will kill us."
"Huff… huff…" Fang Wenyu only gasped, scanning left and right for their foe.