Chapter 59: Showdown on the Starry River
Those who could reach the Great Perfection were all exceptionally talented individuals with immense perseverance and unwavering determination. Standing at the very pinnacle, they were accustomed to others’ respect and reverence. Even when meeting a Sovereign, they need not kneel—only a slight bow was required. One could imagine the pride in their hearts.
“The person I want to kill, you cannot stop!”
Linley’s indifferent words, along with the look in his eyes as he spoke, caused Magnus, who was already grief-stricken and furious over his friend’s death, to instantly turn his eyes bloodshot.
Magnus set down Ramson’s corpse, slowly rose, straightened his body, and coldly stared at Linley.
Linley showed no fear, calmly fixing his gaze on Magnus.
“Rumble…” The surrounding roar continued endlessly as the slaughter raged on. Warriors of the Dark Alliance and the Light Alliance were killing wantonly, blood flying, divine sparks falling, and badges being snatched by surviving soldiers. On the Starry River passage, chaos reigned.
Yet in the midst of this madness, Linley and Magnus stood facing each other, motionless.
It was as if the slaughter of thousands of soldiers around them was nothing but air.
“Target: that standing silver-haired man in white robes! Soul attack!” A hundred-man squad had clearly set their sights on Magnus. As the squad leader issued the order through divine sense transmission, the seventy-five surviving members of the squad simultaneously released various transparent attacks from their bodies, instantly shooting toward Magnus!
Magnus, who had been glaring at Linley, couldn’t help but turn his head. “Hmph!” Magnus let out a low snort, his gaze turning icy.
Magnus’s cold eyes burst forth hazy light swords, like over a hundred arrows shooting out. “Whoosh!” “Whoosh!”… In an instant, they streaked across the sky, colliding with those soul attacks. While shattering the enemy’s attacks, these transparent arrows barely slowed down before plunging into the bodies of the hundred-man squad members. The squad members’ eyes were all filled with terror.
Silently.
The seventy-five corpses fell directly from midair, along with divine sparks, badges, and other items.
With a single glance, seventy-five Highgods died!
“How is that possible?” Some soldiers who noticed this scene turned pale with fright. But… the battle on the Starry River passage was too chaotic. Only a dozen or so soldiers noticed Magnus’s display of power, while the vast majority paid no attention. After all, people were dying constantly everywhere on the passage. A sudden death of seventy-five wouldn’t draw anyone’s notice.
“Boss.” Bebe and the others grew worried.
“Don’t worry, retreat for now,” Linley transmitted. “As for this Magnus, though I’m not completely certain I can defeat him, I will definitely not lose!”
“Linley, this Magnus is after all a Great Perfection. Don’t be careless. And he also has a Sovereign artifact,” Reisgem transmitted. As he spoke, Reisgem, Bebe, and Lei Hong retreated backward, because they knew… once Linley and Magnus started fighting, the scene would be no less intense than when Linley had sparred with Qinghuo.
When experts at the Great Perfection level fought each other, even the stray energy from their attacks could threaten Paragon-level experts.
At this moment, Linley and Magnus paid no attention to anyone else, as if in this world, only the other existed!
Magnus looked at Linley and said in a low voice, “You didn’t die!”
“Oh? Regretting it?” Linley replied with a faint smile, a trace of mockery in his expression.
“No regrets,” Magnus said, having already regained his composure. “Because I know that since you didn’t die last time, you will surely die this time.”
“You’re very confident,” Linley said, looking at Magnus with a tone of evaluation. “But last time, you were also confident that you would kill me with your strongest attack. And what was the result? Last time, I shattered your confidence. This time… I will shatter it again!”
Magnus’s face darkened.
“Haha…” Magnus suddenly let out a cold laugh. “Anyone can talk big! Today, I’ll make you understand the gap between you and a Great Perfection.” Magnus did not believe Linley had reached the Great Perfection, because he had fought Linley before. In his view… Linley was still far from the Great Perfection.
An ordinary Paragon before a Great Perfection was simply courting death.
“Boom!” Amid his laughter, Magnus’s body moved, instantly reaching its limit. Like a blurry phantom, he lunged directly at Linley, while his right hand, clad in a black glove, formed a claw aimed straight at Linley’s head. “Crackle, pop…” The space continuously burst open with holes.
With one claw strike, the space was extremely fragile.
“Arrogant!” A thunderous roar echoed across the Starry River passage.
“Boom!”
A black sword light flashed, striking directly into Magnus’s palm. Heaven and earth trembled, and Magnus was forced to retreat violently. But the space at the point of impact instantly split into several black chasm-like spatial cracks. The terrifying spatial cracks, like monsters, devoured over a dozen nearby soldiers before vanishing.
“Spatial cracks? Such large spatial cracks?” The soldiers who had been slaughtering wildly, especially those near Linley and Magnus, finally noticed the two super experts here.
It didn’t matter that they noticed, because the soldiers from both the Dark Alliance and the Light Alliance continued to surge forward, killing without end!
“You, you—” Magnus stared at Linley in shock. “You’ve reached the Great Perfection?”
“How arrogant!” Linley couldn’t help but sneer.
With Linley’s mastery over heaven and earth, he could clearly sense that Magnus’s earlier attack hadn’t used Sovereign power! Even without using Sovereign power, a Great Perfection expert could usually kill other Paragons. But… if he tried that against Linley, it was far too arrogant.
“Have you truly reached the Great Perfection?” Magnus couldn’t believe it, but the strength Linley had just displayed was real.
“I must thank you for that full-power strike of yours back then,” Linley said with a light laugh. “If you hadn’t tried to kill me and pushed me into a life-or-death situation, I probably wouldn’t have made such great progress.” Linley didn’t admit to reaching the Great Perfection, but to Magnus’s ears, it sounded like an admission.
“No wonder you’re so arrogant—you’ve reached the Great Perfection,” Magnus said, his face darkening. “But Linley, even if you’ve reached the Great Perfection, I, Magnus, will make you understand today… my friends are not someone you have the right to kill!”
As his words fell, Magnus moved again.
“Rumble…”
Linley blinked and found a black fist filling his entire field of vision. The violent and wild aura of Sovereign power from the Edict of Fate was unmistakable. It felt as if the entire space was pressing down on him. This fist seemed capable of destroying heaven and earth, seemingly unstoppable.
“Not using a soul attack, but a material attack?” Linley didn’t hesitate and countered with a full-force thrust of his sword.
“Roar!” 108 black flood dragons flew out from the Shadow Sovereign Sword, devouring toward Magnus. In a daze, Magnus seemed to hear a dragon’s roar, then felt an overwhelming crushing force. This oppressive force even affected his attack.
Linley’s sword, Magnus’s fist!
Clash!
“Thump!” A low sound like striking a drum echoed.
Space instantly shattered, with hundreds of spatial cracks spreading out. Sovereign power imbued with the might of will scattered in all directions. This scattered energy, carrying the might of will, pierced through the bodies of surrounding soldiers like arrows.
The nearly hundred soldiers closest to Linley and Magnus suffered the most—their bodies turned directly to dust! Soldiers further back were either pierced through the chest, thigh, or, if unlucky, through the head. The scattered energy was too fast and too dense.
In an instant, within a hundred-meter radius, hundreds of corpses fell from the sky.
“What, what’s happening?” The soldiers who had been fighting wildly here were completely stunned, stopping one by one to see what had caused so many to die at once. Near the battlefield of Linley and Magnus, there were no survivors left.
On the Starry River passage, this area was unusually clear. This also made the soldiers immediately notice the two locked in battle.
“Boom!” “Bang!”…
Two phantoms moving at extreme speed clashed repeatedly, space constantly splitting, cracks spreading. The scattered Sovereign power caused many soldiers to die one after another.
“Retreat, retreat quickly!” The terrified soldiers involuntarily leaped back, putting a long distance between themselves and Linley and Magnus.
“Such terrifying speed!” The soldiers’ hearts trembled. “Could they be…”
These soldiers, even in the Infernal Realm or the Netherworld, were considered strong and had seen much. But the exaggerated commotion caused by Linley and Magnus’s fight still filled them with fear. Scattered energy could easily kill a Six-Star Demon or a Seven-Star Demon? What kind of power was that?
The space of the Planar Battlefield could easily split into cracks over a hundred meters long? What level of attack power was needed?
Stunned, terrified! Battles were happening simultaneously on both passages. Defeating the enemy and reaching the other end of the passage counted as a victory. Only when both passages were won would one side achieve overall victory in the planar war. If one won and one lost, it was a draw.
But now, the commotion from Linley and Magnus’s fight was too great.
Sometimes they shot into the sky, sometimes they landed, their speed reaching the extreme.
No one dared to be within a thousand meters of them!
On one of the two Starry River passages, a clear open space naturally formed in the center. This forced the battle on that passage to stop, and many soldiers and Paragons noticed this peak showdown.
“Them? Magnus… and that friend of Reisgem’s?” The three-eyed Paragon’s face changed.
Many Paragon-level experts also noticed the distant commotion.
“How is that possible? That guy named Linley?” Uterich watched in shock as Linley and Magnus fought on equal footing. “Linley and Magnus are evenly matched?” Seeing the earth-shattering scene in the distance, Uterich couldn’t believe that the Linley he had looked down on could actually match a Great Perfection expert. Shaking his head, he still couldn’t believe his eyes.
“It’s Linley?”
Those on the Dark Alliance side, though they hadn’t paid much attention to Linley, mostly knew his name. Now, discovering he was the source of such a huge commotion, they were stunned.
“This Linley is too terrifying.”
Chegwine, who had barely survived on the Light Alliance side, was still terrified.
“Who is this?” Many Paragons on the Light Alliance side didn’t recognize Linley.
“Haha… I told you he was strong, suspected to be a Great Perfection,” Hermes said, laughing as he saw the distant battle. “None of you believed me! Haha… See for yourselves! See for yourselves!”
On one of the two Starry River passages, the battle had to pause.
“Quick, change direction, support the other passage! Seize the chance to win the other passage first!” Some quick-thinking Paragons realized that the battle on this passage had stopped and immediately redirected their forces to support the other passage, aiming to secure one victory first.
Linley and Magnus fought in the center of the Starry River passage. On either side of them, soldiers from both camps had dealt with their enemies and temporarily stopped fighting.
No one dared to approach Linley and the other.
Sovereign power imbued with the might of will, when scattered, was dangerous even for Paragons to touch. Who would dare to get close?
For a time, thousands of soldiers and numerous Paragons watched this terrifying battle in shock. Many of them truly understood the horror of a Great Perfection for the first time today!
“Smack!”
The Paragons and soldiers only saw vague phantoms as the two separated—one shooting into the sky, the other standing on the ground. Hovering high in the air was Magnus, with a trace of blood at the corner of his mouth, but it quickly healed.
Standing on the ground was a figure covered in blue-gold dragon scales, with spikes protruding from his back one after another—Linley! Linley’s dark golden eyes stared at the sky above: “Magnus… you, a Great Perfection of Fate, want to compete with me in material attacks? You’re still a bit lacking!”