Chapter 3: Chapter Arrives!
“Hiss, hiss…”
Black halos swirled around the Crimson Rock Lord’s entire body. The bulges on his shoulders grew increasingly exaggerated until, with a *puff*, two additional black, blade-like wings sprouted forth. These two black wings merged together behind him, resembling a black cape draped over the Crimson Rock Lord.
On the Crimson Rock Lord’s forehead, two sharp black horns also emerged.
The Crimson Rock Lord’s entire body turned pitch-black as ink, his violet pupils fixed directly on Linley.
“Those vertical violet pupils—they’re nothing like an ordinary person’s. I should have guessed long ago,” Linley thought to himself as he looked at the Crimson Rock Lord before him. This Crimson Rock Lord could actually transform, which naturally meant his strength would increase further. Linley also felt a bit of pressure. In this battle, could he win?
Linley wasn’t entirely confident either.
He could only sigh inwardly—anyone who could become a Nine Nether Lord was not to be underestimated.
“Linley!” The Crimson Rock Lord’s violet eyes locked onto Linley, a grin spreading across his face. “No matter how this battle ends, I will remember you!” As soon as the words left his mouth, the Crimson Rock Lord’s scissor-like black wings gave a single flap, instantly forming a strange dual-ring structural gravitational field around him.
“Whoosh!”
Like a bird in flight, the Crimson Rock Lord shot forward with ethereal, extreme speed.
“Speed has indeed increased a bit, but it’s still far from enough!” Linley didn’t retreat either, instead transforming into an arc as he met the attack head-on. The transparent Afterimage Divine Sword mercilessly thrust toward the Crimson Rock Lord’s head without hesitation. With this single thrust, even the planar space was easily pierced, leaving a hole.
The Crimson Rock Lord swung his arm.
“Clang!”
The black blade, flowing with earthy yellow light, clashed with Linley’s divine sword, Afterimage.
“Boom!”
Both were sent flying backward by the recoil, but in an instant, they shot toward each other again at extreme speed. In terms of speed, it was clear that Linley currently held the advantage; the Crimson Rock Lord couldn’t block every strike. However, the strange gravitational field around the Crimson Rock Lord caused each of Linley’s sword strikes to be slightly affected as they approached.
That slight influence, however, altered the outcome.
“Swish!” A sword strike at the pinnacle of speed.
The Crimson Rock Lord was ultimately a beat too slow, but when the Afterimage Divine Sword entered the peculiar dual-ring gravitational field, its direction was inevitably deflected slightly. The Crimson Rock Lord flapped his wings once more, seemingly preparing to block again.
“Hmph!” Linley instantly unleashed the Afterimage Divine Sword’s maximum power.
“Pfft!”
The Afterimage Divine Sword pierced straight through the Crimson Rock Lord’s left shoulder, blood splattering. Having landed a hit, Linley didn’t hesitate and immediately retreated. After pulling back some distance, Linley once again relied on his speed to launch a sneak attack. Although, in terms of material attacks, Linley could match his opponent blow for blow using his divine artifact weapon…
Linley, however, chose not to fight head-on.
Instead, he relied on the Afterimage Divine Sword and his speed, leaving wounds on his opponent’s body time and again. Even after transforming, the Crimson Rock Lord was still far slower. He could only barely manage to keep his head from being pierced. But other parts of his body were impossible to protect. Within the earthy yellow space, the two figures clashed in lightning-fast exchanges again and again. Linley’s invisible Afterimage Sword occasionally left marks on the Crimson Rock Lord’s body. The Crimson Rock Lord appeared somewhat battered, but he showed no sign of discouragement, continuing to fight Linley.
If Linley let his guard down even slightly, he might suffer a heavy blow.
“This is getting troublesome. Looks like it won’t be settled anytime soon,” Bebe muttered with a frown.
“It is a bit troublesome. Although the Lord’s speed increased after transforming, Elder Linley clearly isn’t fighting him head-on. He doesn’t even have a chance to land a hit on Elder Linley. Meanwhile, Elder Linley can wound him, so Elder Linley is clearly at a slight advantage,” said a green-robed burly man beside Bebe. Across the Eastern Wilderness, the billion-plus spectators, seeing the stalemate in the battle above, started buzzing with discussion again. At this moment, Linley held a slight upper hand, with blood constantly flowing from the Crimson Rock Lord.
However, this level of injury had little impact on his combat strength.
Who would win? Who would lose?
For now, it was impossible to tell.
“If this drags on, how long will it last?” Many people began to wonder.
What these spectators most wanted to see was a true, direct clash. Such battles might be brief, but life and death were usually decided within a few moves. That kind of fight made the audience tense and their blood boil.
Right now…
Linley and the Crimson Rock Lord clearly weren’t going all out.
“Hey, strange—the Crimson Rock Lord seems faster,” someone suddenly remarked.
“Yeah, he is faster. It looks like Elder Linley isn’t wounding him as easily anymore,” many observers gradually noticed.
Bebe noticed it too, and his expression immediately changed.
“That sword is too bizarre,” the Crimson Rock Lord thought, his nerves stretched taut. The Afterimage Divine Sword kept thrusting at him, and if not for his gravitational field altering its direction and his desperate defense, Linley’s sword would have pierced his head long ago. He could only hold on like this…
“Wait, just wait. Soon, it’ll be your turn to suffer,” the Crimson Rock Lord thought to himself.
Linley also sensed something was wrong.
“His speed is increasing—more precisely, the gravitational field around his body is changing,” Linley observed. The Crimson Rock Lord’s wings were covered in Earth divine power and vibrating intensely, producing two special shockwaves. These two shockwaves interacted with each other.
They were actually causing the gravitational field to shift.
As time went on, the two shockwaves kept evolving, and the gravitational field’s resistance to Linley’s Blackstone Space grew more effective.
The gravity space essentially relied on divine power to alter gravitational changes. If the opponent was also proficient, they could completely neutralize this gravity space. Although the Crimson Rock Lord didn’t understand the Blackstone Space, he was slowly adjusting based on it, targeting Linley’s Blackstone Space and continuously improving.
As a result, the longer it went on, the faster he became!
“Linley, now it’s your turn to taste the feeling of being crushed!” The Crimson Rock Lord suddenly roared, transforming into a black light as he shot toward Linley at extreme speed. Although his speed was still slower than Linley’s, he could now compensate with attack techniques and other methods. The gap was no longer as large as before.
Linley gave a cold smile: “It’s time to end this.”
Linley charged straight ahead.
“Whoosh!” The black blade came straight for Linley’s head. Without hesitation, Linley thrust the Afterimage Divine Sword fiercely.
“Clang!”
The moment the black blade and the Afterimage Divine Sword clashed—
“Whoosh!” The Crimson Rock Lord flapped his wings, instantly accelerating. His right fist shot straight toward Linley along a straight line. But as it came, it produced a strange fluctuation. “Hiss, hiss…” The space seemed to form a vortex, and the fist was at the center of it. In an instant—
The surrounding space was churned as if stirred, even the gravitational field was twisted. Linley felt his own body’s movement affected.
“Huh? This punch!” Linley’s expression changed drastically.
The effect of this punch reminded Linley of the scene at the Netherworld Hotel when he saw the Death Sovereign using a water-element law attack. Back then, the Death Sovereign had used a fishing line to stir space and directly bind a Seven Star Demon-level expert. Now, the Crimson Rock Lord’s punch had a similar effect.
Linley had no time to retreat!
“Huff!” Gritting his teeth, Linley’s dragon-claw left fist also punched out fiercely, Earth divine power surging through it like a mountain pressing forward—Circular Void Split!
“Boom!”
Linley felt a piercing pain in the knuckles of his left fist and immediately used the rebound force to retreat.
“What a powerful punch.” Linley looked down. The dragon scales on his fist were nearly all shattered, blood seeping out, and he could faintly see the white bones of his fingers. Even after using the Circular Void Split, he had ended up in this state.
“I can’t trade punches with him fist-to-fist,” Linley quickly concluded. “Use the divine artifact weapon against his fists.”
“Hahaha…”
Mad laughter rang out. The Crimson Rock Lord’s violet eyes locked onto Linley, his wings flapping as he charged again. Linley’s Afterimage Divine Sword instantly shot out, its speed so great that the Crimson Rock Lord’s laughter abruptly stopped. He immediately moved to block with his black blade.
But Linley suddenly withdrew his sword.
“Rumble…” The Crimson Rock Lord sneered, his black fist, flowing with earthy yellow light, struck out again. Space was churned into a vortex, and the surrounding gravitational space twisted once more.
“Swish!”
The Afterimage Divine Sword thrust straight out.
“Hmph.” The Crimson Rock Lord confidently didn’t dodge, his right fist aiming for the Afterimage Divine Sword. But as the sword neared his fist, it uncontrollably got caught in the twisted vortex space and ended up wrapping around the fist. The Crimson Rock Lord’s fist struck directly against the flat of the Afterimage Divine Sword.
Then it continued toward Linley’s head.
“Boom!”
Suddenly—
The Blackstone Space’s gravitational pull downward changed to—repulsion!
Initially, it had been pulling downward, forcing resistance. When the downward pull suddenly vanished, the Crimson Rock Lord involuntarily surged upward. Then, the repulsion force swept in. The Crimson Rock Lord’s body couldn’t help but sway, even stumbling backward and upward.
“Whoosh!” Linley seized the opportunity, thrusting the Afterimage Divine Sword straight forward.
The sudden change in gravity also caused the Crimson Rock Lord’s gravitational field, which had been adapted to the downward pull, to fail. His speed dropped sharply again. By the time he reacted to Linley’s sudden strike, the sword was already before his eyes.
“Not good!” The Crimson Rock Lord’s expression changed drastically as he frantically retreated.
Under repulsion, retreating was still quite fast.
Linley grinned: “Come toward me!”
The gravity shifted again! Repulsion turned into attraction toward Linley!
The Crimson Rock Lord couldn’t help but stagger.
“Pfft!” Struggling to dodge, Linley’s sword only pierced the Crimson Rock Lord’s chest.
“Impossible, impossible!!!” The Crimson Rock Lord frantically resisted the gravitational pull as he retreated, staring at Linley in disbelief. “How can your gravity space change direction at will? How is that possible… Unless!” A figure immediately flashed through the Crimson Rock Lord’s mind.
“Reisgem!” The Crimson Rock Lord looked at Linley in shock.
This ability to easily change the direction of gravity in a space was precisely Reisgem’s signature move. Even for a powerhouse of the Crimson Rock Lord’s level, maintaining perfect movement under such constantly shifting gravity was impossible.
Under these circumstances, he could only strive to protect his own life.
“Whoosh!” Linley shot forward again at extreme speed.
The Crimson Rock Lord immediately tried to retreat. But the gravity shifted again, this time becoming an upward pull. Caught off guard, the Crimson Rock Lord’s body moved upward involuntarily: “Damn it, damn it… This is Reisgem’s innate technique. How could anyone else learn it? How is that possible?” Even now, the Crimson Rock Lord still refused to believe it.
“Hum…” A strange, powerful wave spread out.
“What?” The Crimson Rock Lord’s expression changed.
At this moment, Linley was staring at him, while a massive, ten-thousand-meter-long azure dragon phantom coiled behind Linley. The dragon’s head hovered behind Linley, staring coldly at the Crimson Rock Lord. Then, a peculiar sound echoed in the Crimson Rock Lord’s mind—
Innate Divine Ability—Dragon’s Roar!
Linley’s final trump card was finally unleashed!
PS: Chapter three has arrived! Damn it, I’m pushing on to write chapter four!