Chapter 42: Linley’s Terrifying Strength!
Linley stared calmly at this Clementine.
Facing the siege of eight powerful experts, Clementine wore a smile on his face.
“If you want this Red Diamond Crystal, we can talk,” Clementine said with a laugh. “But I must tell you, I’ve already informed the Sovereign of Light about this. By doing this, you’re offending the Sovereign of Light. You’d better think it over carefully.”
“What a joke,” Dannington sneered. “Offend the Sovereign of Light? The Red Diamond Crystal is up for fair competition. If competing for it means offending the Sovereign of Light, then by your logic, monopolizing it means offending the Sovereign of Destruction, the Sovereign of Life, and many others!” Among the Paragons present, who didn’t have backing?
Perhaps only Linley had come alone.
In truth, in the eyes of the other Paragons, Linley was backed by the Sovereign of Destruction of the Infernal Realm.
“Stop wasting time,” Bayer said coldly.
Clementine’s face darkened as he swept his gaze over Linley and the other seven, sneering, “Fine. You want this Red Diamond Crystal, don’t you? But how will the eight of you divide a single Red Diamond Crystal? I’m very curious about that.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Dannington said, his expression turning cold.
“Everyone, prepare to attack,” Linley spoke up.
Clementine’s face instantly turned icy. He suddenly hurled the spatial ring in his hand with immense force, the ring turning into a blur as it flew into the distance.
“Is he really handing it over?” Linley was startled. This was somewhat unexpected. “Or is this spatial ring he threw a fake?” Linley was suspicious. But no matter how doubtful he was, Linley wouldn’t ignore it!
“The Red Diamond Crystal!”
Including Linley, the eight of them surged forward. However, Linley’s divine sense was constantly spread out, and he clearly noticed that Clementine was flying at top speed toward the Misty Continent.
A deep voice rang out: “This ring might not be real. Everyone, don’t let Clementine escape. Stop him first.”
Despite this, who would go to stop him?
If someone went to stop him, others would surely go after the spatial ring. After all… Linley and the other seven were not a unified group. Everyone wanted the Red Diamond Crystal. This led to the situation where, even though they knew Clementine was fleeing, no one intercepted him.
Everyone went after the spatial ring that Clementine had thrown.
The closest and fastest, Linley and Bayer, were at the forefront, about to grab the spatial ring. Even at this moment, Linley hadn’t revealed his true strength.
“Whoosh!” A terrifying current of air swept toward Linley, sharply reducing his speed.
“Hmph,” Linley thought to himself.
“Slap!” Suddenly, a dragon tail over two meters long, like a steel whip, emerged from behind Linley. After his transformation, Linley’s dragon tail scales were now entirely dark green. Under Linley’s control, the tail abruptly extended to nearly four meters and lashed out—
“Crack!” Space was torn apart like paper cut by a sharp blade, the spatial rift incredibly neat.
“Bam!” Bayer couldn’t dodge in time and was struck hard by the dragon tail, sent flying. Not only him, but the lightning-element Paragon, Ninisha, who was chasing from behind, was also knocked away by Linley’s tail.
Linley reached out and grabbed the spatial ring. At the same instant, a drop of blood sank into it.
“Spatial ring, Red Diamond Crystal.” Linley’s heart trembled with excitement.
“Everyone, attack Linley together,” Bayer transmitted to the other Paragons.
But at that moment, Linley’s divine sense swept through the spatial ring. The ring was completely empty—not even a single stone, let alone the Red Diamond Crystal. Linley’s heart sank, and a surge of anger rose within him. “This Clementine really couldn’t bear to give up the Red Diamond Crystal.”
The other Paragons, however, were beginning to prepare to attack Linley.
“This ring is fake!” Linley transmitted angrily to the others. “We’ve been tricked by Clementine!”
“What?”
The other seven Paragons’ expressions changed drastically. They had all considered this possibility, but now that it had actually happened, they were furious. To be deceived all at once by Clementine—how could they not be angry?
They had thought of this earlier, and someone had even suggested stopping Clementine.
But everyone wanted someone else to do the stopping while they grabbed the ring.
Lack of unity had allowed Clementine to widen the gap.
“Catch him!” roared the earth-element Paragon, a burly man four meters tall.
Including Linley, all eight charged toward Clementine.
“Haha, you’re only thinking of catching me now? Too late,” Clementine’s voice echoed in the minds of Dannington, Bammet, Linley, and the others. “Just as I thought—disunity. A simple trick, and you all fell for it.”
Dannington, Bayer, and the others all wore grim expressions.
Everyone had known it might be fake, but they couldn’t resist grabbing the ring.
“It’ll be hard to catch him now,” a cold voice transmitted into Linley’s mind. It was the lightning-element Paragon, Ninisha. “While we were grabbing the ring, even if only for a moment, Clementine has already flown over a hundred thousand miles away. Among us, only four can match his speed, maybe slightly faster. But the distance is too great; catching him is impossible.”
Ninisha was disheartened.
The other Paragons were also helpless. Though unwilling to admit it, it was the truth.
“Haha, I thought I’d need a second plan. Seems I don’t. Thanks for your restraint, everyone. I’ll take the Red Diamond Crystal now,” Clementine deliberately transmitted.
Many Paragons had already begun to slow down.
They had given up.
“No point chasing. We can’t catch him,” Dannington also gave up.
Linley stared ahead, his gaze sharp.
“Almost there,” Linley thought. With a mental command, the wind-element Sovereign power surging through his body instantly withdrew into his soul sea. Meanwhile, fused divine power began to flow through him! The black divine power, fused from four types of Highgod power, greatly increased Linley’s energy. He accelerated slightly.
“Boom!”
The planar space trembled, and Linley’s speed suddenly surged!
His speed increased by about thirty percent.
In truth, with fused divine power ten times stronger than Sovereign power, Linley could have been several times faster. But Linley understood one thing: “If I suddenly became several times faster, Clementine would be too scared to fight and would flee into the spatial turbulence. That would be bad. For now, a thirty percent increase won’t scare him… and it’s enough to catch him.”
Linley’s original speed was already terrifying. A thirty percent increase?
With that increase, covering a hundred thousand miles was effortless.
“Trying to catch me? Dream on,” Clementine, who was fleeing and feeling smug, suddenly turned pale. His divine sense detected Linley leaving the other seven Paragons far behind and closing in at incredible speed. “How is this possible? How can he be this fast? Was he hiding his strength before?”
The other seven Paragons were also stunned.
“How is Linley this fast?” Dannington was dumbfounded.
“This speed… is nearly thirty percent faster than mine,” the lightning-element Paragon Ninisha said, his violet eyes filled with shock.
“So much faster! From here to the Misty Continent’s teleportation array is over a hundred million miles. They’re only a hundred thousand miles apart. He’ll catch up in no time,” Bayer frowned, also shaken by Linley’s speed.
These Paragons had no idea that Linley’s displayed speed was only a tiny fraction of his true power. He was deliberately holding back to avoid scaring Clementine into fleeing into the spatial turbulence.
“So what if he’s a bit faster? He’s alone. He can’t stop me,” Clementine quickly calmed down.
He had a material defense divine artifact. In his view, Linley’s material attacks shouldn’t be able to harm him.
As for soul attacks?
Unless the gap was enormous, killing someone was nearly impossible.
“His soul attacks definitely aren’t stronger than mine. Even if they were slightly stronger, they wouldn’t hurt me. He’s just a bit faster. Makes sense—he’s from a divine beast clan, so he might have some tricks,” Clementine thought confidently. After surviving soul attacks from two Paragons earlier, he wasn’t afraid of Linley.
Unless necessary, he wouldn’t choose to enter the spatial turbulence.
Doing so would also cause him considerable trouble.
“Clementine, you can’t escape,” Linley had already caught up, and Clementine was now within his line of sight.
“Linley, I admit you’re fast, but you alone want to stop me?” Clementine sneered.
Linley remained silent, staring intently at Clementine as the distance shrank: a thousand meters, five hundred meters, a hundred meters…
Suddenly—
“Boom!”
In an instant, Linley’s speed tripled! On top of the previous thirty percent increase, it tripled again!
Tripled!!!
“Impossible!!!” The seven Paragons watching from afar were stunned. Five of them couldn’t help but cry out, while the other two stared wide-eyed in shock. For countless years, nothing had been able to shock Paragons.
But Linley’s speed had tripled again, placing him on an entirely different level from Paragons!
To achieve such speed, his energy and physical strength must far exceed that of a Paragon!
Throughout history, everyone believed Paragons were the pinnacle of gods. Yet Linley was clearly a level above them. What did that mean?
“Impossible!!!” Clementine’s eyes were also filled with terror.
At that moment—
“Boom!” Before he could react, a fist slammed into his face!
Clementine’s material defense divine artifact trembled violently but wasn’t damaged. However, the bones in his skull cracked, his face split open, and blood flowed freely. Clementine’s mind went blank. He was completely dazed!
Not only him, but the seven watching Paragons were also stunned!
To injure him through a defense divine artifact—what kind of attack power was that?
Back in the Infernal Realm’s Youlan Prefecture, when the eight great clans besieged the Four Divine Beasts clan, Beirut had appeared, wielding a divine artifact staff, and swept through the eight clans’ experts. The clan leaders, who also had defense divine artifacts, were still heavily injured by Beirut’s strikes.
A defense divine artifact didn’t make one invincible.
It was like a child holding a steel shield while an adult swung an iron rod at it. Even if the shield wasn’t damaged, the remaining force would still injure the child.
The same principle applied here!
If the power difference was only two or three times, a defense divine artifact would be sufficient.
Of course, there was a condition: the attacker needed a powerful weapon. Beirut had injured the eight clan leaders because he wielded a divine artifact. Attacking a divine artifact with another divine artifact, combined with his strength far exceeding his opponents’, allowed him to injure them. If Beirut went all out, he could even kill them.
Without a divine artifact, it would be problematic.
If the attack was strong but the weapon weak, the weapon might shatter under the impact.
But after Linley’s four-power fusion transformation, his fists and feet were comparable to divine artifacts!
“This… this is impossible?” Clementine’s eyes were still filled with shock as he stared at Linley. “You, how did you…?”
“Hmph, Clementine, I wasn’t using my full strength earlier,” Linley said coldly. At the same time, dark green dragon scales erupted from his body, along with dark green spikes. Linley fully dragonized in an instant. He stared at Clementine. “Earlier, through your divine artifact, I could have seriously injured you. Now, I can kill you. You should understand.”
At this moment, Linley’s non-dragonized body was already stronger than his dragonized form before the four-power fusion.
Fused divine power was ten times stronger than Sovereign power.
This made Linley, even without dragonization, over ten times stronger than a typical Paragon.
Now, Linley was dragonized! His power had increased further. His fists and feet, combined with the might of his will, were at the level of divine artifacts!
“No, how can this be?” Clementine was dumbfounded.
The other watching Paragons were also completely stunned.
How could there be a being in this world far surpassing a Paragon? Paragons were the invincible pinnacle of gods—that was an iron law!
But they didn’t know… that so-called iron law was based on the past. After the unprecedented success of the four divine clones’ soul mutation, everything had changed! The soul mutation of four divine clones had never happened before. After Linley succeeded, the might of his will far exceeded that of a Paragon.
This foretold that Linley would be stronger than a Paragon!
Not only was the might of his will stronger, but the most terrifying thing was that the fusion of four types of divine power had transformed Linley’s body, making it reach the level of a divine artifact. This terrifying body, combined with the terrifying might of his will and the fused divine power far surpassing Sovereign power…
All of this meant Linley would far surpass a Paragon Highgod!
Before the four-power fusion, Linley was on par with a Paragon. After the fusion, he far exceeded them!
“I still have a divine clone hidden inside me. Fine, I admit that after dragonizing, you have the strength to kill me. But you can only kill my main body. My divine clone can crush the spatial ring,” Clementine quickly said. “If you kill me, you won’t get the spatial ring or the Red Diamond Crystal.”
“That’s why I didn’t kill you just now,” Linley said coldly.
With strength dozens of times greater than his opponent and a body comparable to a divine artifact, Linley could kill him through the divine artifact. But that would only kill the main body; the divine clone hidden inside wouldn’t die instantly. That divine clone could easily crush the spatial ring.
“Clementine, it’s just a Red Diamond Crystal. I don’t think you’d risk your life for it,” Linley said coldly. “Even if you got it and offered it to a Sovereign, you’d only get some Sovereign power. It’s not that useful.”
Clementine nodded.
“Your life, everything you have—compared to a Red Diamond Crystal that can only get you some Sovereign power, which is more valuable? I think you can decide,” Linley said with a faint smile. “And don’t think about entering the spatial turbulence. Even if you do, I’ll follow you in and kill you in an instant.”
Linley had said he was ninety percent sure because—
He believed that unless Clementine was insane, he wouldn’t give up a Paragon divine clone for a mere Red Diamond Crystal that could only get him some Sovereign power.
“Fine, you win,” Clementine said with a bitter smile. “I won’t give up my life for this thing. But I want to ask… are you a Paragon Highgod?”