Chapter 55: The Powerhouses by the Stellar River
The sound of bones cracking echoed in his ears as Hermes was sent flying through the air.
"What, what the hell is going on?" Hermes was completely stunned. "What's up with this kid from the Azure Dragon clan? The first time I met him, he couldn't even fight back. He had to rely on Sovereign power, the Gravity Space, and his innate divine ability, using every trick he had just to escape. The second time I met him, the kid could already fight me face to face. And now, the third time... I can't even put up a fight?"
Stunned!
Completely stunned!
"No matter how talented, you can't play it like this." Hermes landed on the ground, staring at Linley in the distance, his mind still in a mess.
Blood dripped down his face. Hermes shook his head and muttered to himself, "Impossible, something must be wrong!" Hermes hadn't fully processed it yet, but he began healing his injuries. "This Azure Dragon kid, one punch shattered my jaw and cracked my teeth."
Hermes' physical defense was terrifying. Back when Linley first met him, a full-force sword strike barely managed to pierce his facial skin.
His face was his weakest defense. His muscles were stronger, and his bones were even harder!
Linley casually punched and shattered his jawbone?
"Hey, Hermes, what are you standing there like an idiot for? Don't you want to kill us and get the Commander badge?" Bebe said smugly, clutching his stomach with laughter.
"Impossible, something must be wrong!!!" Hermes roared.
"Boom!" A dazzling earthy yellow halo suddenly surged around Hermes' entire body. A blinding golden light clung to his skin, especially on his fists and legs, shining so brightly it hurt the eyes. Hermes, like a rampaging bear, turned into a bolt of lightning and charged at Linley again.
This Hermes had clearly gone mad.
"What a big fool." Linley smiled faintly.
Roaring, Hermes threw a full-force punch that tore through the air like a dragon surging forth, aimed straight at Linley. "Crackle..." Wherever the fist passed, the space of the planar battlefield shattered like fragile glass, with dozens of meter-long spatial cracks spreading outward.
"Though he's a bit foolish, his strength is indeed impressive." Linley still wore a smile.
The same move!
One punch unleashed over a hundred black azure dragons that swept toward Hermes. This time, Linley had clearly used the Sovereign power of Destruction. "This Hermes is using Sovereign power; to subdue him, I really need to use Sovereign power too." Although he could easily defeat Hermes now, Linley had to admit the other's strength.
"Sssss..." The hundred-plus azure dragons formed a cage, binding Hermes—every inch of space was sealed!
An even more terrifying binding force than before took shape. Hermes found it extremely difficult to move his entire body. Under such circumstances, his speed was pitifully slow, and he could only watch helplessly as Linley's fist landed on him.
"Thud!"
A punch slammed into Hermes' chest. Amid the sound of breaking bones, Hermes was sent stumbling backward, his feet plowing deep furrows into the ground.
"What the hell is going on?" Hermes looked down at his chest. A large, bloody hole had appeared, with blood gushing out. This injury was even worse than the last; his sternum had long been shattered. Fortunately, Hermes' body was tough enough that the punch didn't pierce through his chest.
But with that kind of power, if it had hit his head, it would have definitely killed him!
Hermes suddenly snapped awake!
"Hermes, want to go again?" Linley said with a smile.
"Hey, Hermes, weren't you so tough before? What's wrong now, dumbfounded?" Reisgem said teasingly from the side. As he spoke, Reisgem deliberately released his aura.
"You... Reisgem?" Hermes finally recognized him.
"My aura-hiding skills are too strong. Unless I choose to reveal myself, people like you, Hermes, can't figure out my identity at all." Reisgem said smugly. His aura-hiding skills were indeed powerful, but when facing Magnus or Linley, they could still easily detect his presence.
Hermes carefully studied Linley.
"You... were you messing with me before?" Hermes said in a low voice.
"No." Linley shook his head with a smile.
Hermes stared at Linley, growing somewhat angry. "Kid from the Azure Dragon clan, if you're this strong, why mess with me? I, Hermes, might be a bit slow on the uptake, but I'm not stupid enough to believe that a kid who couldn't fight back a few hundred years ago could easily trample me a few hundred years later!"
Hermes didn't try to escape, because he knew...
With his pitiful speed, trying to flee was completely impossible.
"Why would I lie to you?" Linley said calmly. "You can go. I don't want to kill you."
"Not kill me?" Hermes was stunned.
On the planar battlefield, if you couldn't defeat someone, you'd usually be killed. But today...
"Fine, I believe you weren't messing with me before." Hermes gave Linley a deep look. "Can you tell me how long you've been training?"
"Less than three thousand years." Linley didn't hide anything.
Hermes blinked stupidly a couple of times. "Less than three, three, three... thousand years?" He looked at Linley in disbelief. "I really want to ask you: are you messing with me, or did I hear wrong? Or did you mean less than three million years, not three thousand?"
Three million years, Hermes could believe. But three thousand? That was way too shocking.
"You heard right." Linley shook his head with a smile. "Bebe, let's go."
Linley, Reisgem, Lei Hong, and Bebe walked off cheerfully. Bebe turned back to look at Hermes. "Haha, big fool, don't just stand there dumbfounded. Even if you stand there for three million years, you'll never catch up to my boss."
"Less than three thousand years? In just a few hundred years on the planar battlefield, I fought him three times, and each time..."
Hermes' sluggish mind finally pieced everything together. He looked warily in the direction Linley had gone. "What a terrifying figure. Less than three thousand years. Constantly improving. And he's from the Azure Dragon clan. For his material attack to reach this level... he must be a Paragon."
"Three thousand years, a Paragon?"
Hermes plopped down on the ground, then casually lay back. His head was still spinning.
"Ah." Hermes suddenly slapped his forehead. "I forgot to ask his name! Oh well, I'll just call him the Azure Dragon clan kid." Hermes deeply etched in his mind that there was a kid from the Azure Dragon clan with terrifying strength that seemed to be at the Paragon level.
"It looks like the final battle will be spectacular." Hermes muttered. "With so many experts... yeah, I have to go see it." Saying this, Hermes stood up and headed toward the Stellar River.
But wary of Linley, Hermes took a slightly different route than Linley's group.
The Stellar River was a thousand miles wide and over a million miles long, splitting the entire planar battlefield in two.
The vast Stellar River was dazzling and brilliant, with colorful spatial streams flowing within. But the powerhouses on the planar battlefield all understood that while these spatial streams looked beautiful, they contained terrifying energy. Once trapped inside, one would quickly become lost. Even Paragons didn't dare enter the spatial streams.
That showed how dangerous they were.
At that moment, by the edge of the Stellar River, Linley and his three companions stood there.
"All these years, we've been on this side of the Stellar River. The other side is our camp." Reisgem said with a smile. "Come on... it's time to go back to our camp. On this side, we can't participate in the final battle. I still want to collect a few more Commander badges."
With that, Reisgem was the first to dart into the Stellar River.
Just like when Linley and the others had come, they flew along a safe, winding path!
Lei Hong, Bebe, and Linley followed closely behind.
When they had first crossed the Stellar River to this side, Linley and Bebe had been terrified, afraid of accidentally falling into a spatial crack. But this time going back, Linley himself was completely relaxed.
"The Stellar River is indeed beautiful." Linley even had the leisure to admire the surrounding spatial streams, watching the floating boulders and earthen mountains within the river.
Moving through it, with Linley's control over space, he could clearly sense where it was dangerous and where it was safe. Even if he touched a spatial crack, with his current strength, he wouldn't be sucked in.
After crossing the thousand-mile length, Linley and his group quickly made it to the other side.
Every planar war lasted a thousand years. For most of that time, ordinary soldiers had no tasks and could stay safely in their camps. But in the final moments of the thousand years, the soldiers would start getting busy. At this point, on the planar battlefield, the camps of both sides had all been moved to the edges of the Stellar River.
Using the two passages of the Stellar River as focal points, the camps spread out along the riverbanks.
The camp encampments stretched quite far along the Stellar River, and there were also many patrol soldiers roaming not far from the camps. Their current task was—to receive Commander-level figures!
After all, during the final battle, some independent Commanders would also join in. These armies naturally welcomed Commanders to join, since a Commander's strength far surpassed that of ordinary soldiers and could play a significant role in the final battle.
By a small earthen hill, over a hundred soldiers were either sitting cross-legged casually, leaning against the hill half-lying down, or standing around looking about. This was one of the patrol teams from a camp on the side of the Dark Divine Plane.
"Captain, someone's coming from the Stellar River. Four people total." A silver-haired, purple-eyed soldier called out.
"Oh? Might be Commanders. Let's get a closer look." The captain of this hundred-man squad, a bald man with a hooked nose, said. He then led the team closer. They weren't too worried, since their camp was not far behind them. Also, they wouldn't get too close to the four.
When they got within two to three hundred meters.
"It's our side!" The captain breathed a sigh of relief. They could also sense the badge aura of the four.
Immediately, the hundred-man squad approached.
"Hey, who are you people?" A boy in a straw hat blurted out.
The bald, hooked-nose captain immediately bowed and said, "Four lords, we were ordered by our Commander to receive various lords in the vicinity."
"Let's go, Linley." Reisgem said with a laugh. "It's always like this every year. By the end, the camps let us join in. Whether we just watch from the sidelines or join the fight, it's up to us. And inside the camp... a large group of Commanders can get to know each other, and it's easier to make arrangements."
Linley nodded. "Then let's go."
"Please follow me, four lords." The captain said humbly.
Under the captain's lead, with the hundred soldiers following, Linley and his group arrived at the nearest camp. The camp had many stone houses built, with soldiers everywhere.
"This is our camp, specially built as residences for Commanders. The lords can choose any unoccupied place to stay." The captain pointed ahead. "Twenty buildings. Three of them have people living in them, and the other seventeen are empty. You can tell by the courtyard gates—the gates of unoccupied courtyards are locked."
Ahead was a row of ancient-style courtyards, twenty in total.
"More people coming?" From one of the courtyards, two people walked out. One was a young man as thin as a bamboo pole, but with a cold, eerie gaze. Beside him was a white-haired, white-bearded old man with a full smile.
"Oh, Reisgem." The thin young man said lightly.
"Eterich, I didn't expect you to be here too." Reisgem sneered, then said to Linley, "Linley, don't mind this guy. Let's go inside." Reisgem seemed quite disdainful of the thin young man.
"Yeah." Linley couldn't be bothered with him either.
"Linley? I've heard that a Linley popped up from the Four Divine Beasts clan in the Infernal Realm. Is that him?" Eterich looked at Linley and sneered. "I saw the projection too. His strength is just average. Killing those ordinary Seven Star Fiends is one thing, but coming to the planar battlefield? He's just asking to die."
Linley turned his head and glanced at him. Eterich was taken aback, but Linley immediately followed Reisgem into the courtyard.
"Eterich, a genius from the Gold-Eyed Bat clan? What kind of eyesight do you have?" Bebe glanced at him, gave a disdainful smile, and then followed Linley into the courtyard.
PS: Second chapter here. The day before yesterday, there was an explosion of update votes, and Tomato promised to update more. Well, today Tomato still has a third chapter. But it'll be late. Brothers who can't wait can read it tomorrow morning. Tomato is going to continue writing.