Chapter 28: Falling Stars
The battle had already begun.
Raising his long spear in his right hand, Joshua aimed it at the enemy before him and exhaled. Having surpassed the Ultimate Essence and approached the Legendary realm, his body was no longer composed of simple cells and flesh, but of countless tiny energy structures formed from pure Life Energy. With each breath, every inch of the special energy structures inside the warrior's body operated like high-powered engines, frantically absorbing and converting the ambient free energy of heaven and earth. This energy was transformed into pure, explosive impact force and intense heat, which then erupted from the tip of the Dragon-Hunting Sword Lance.
One, two, four, eight—his right hand flickered, and the tip of the Dragon-Hunting Sword Lance blurred into afterimages. In an instant, thirty-two layers of spiral spear force, stacked upon one another as if capable of piercing all things, plowed across the ground, carving channels of molten lava and engulfing the silver knight charging forward on his warhorse.
High heat and impact were the most primal forms of attack, and Joshua had pushed them to their absolute limit. Each spiral spear force contained temperatures exceeding ten thousand degrees and an impact force surpassing one hundred thousand tons, enough to shatter mountains and melt hills. The only drawback was perhaps their straight-line trajectory, easily evaded by an equally skilled expert. But at this moment, Akhar was charging in a straight line, making him the perfect target.
The spiral-shaped destructive impact struck its target, instantly causing a blinding light, like a sun, to flare across the barren plains. A continuous series of explosions roared within a rapidly rising, massive pillar of dust. Yet, in the blink of an eye, a silver-white figure burst through the thick dust column.
A semi-circular, translucent barrier of distorted air blocked all residual shockwaves. The dust parted around the barrier, revealing Akhar completely unharmed. He swung his Orichalcum long spear with solemn intensity, causing the atmosphere to tremble. The spear, coated in a starlight-like luster, met each blow head-on, forcefully shattering all the remaining spiral impacts.
Then came the counterattack. Akhar thrust his spear forward. The knight himself did not move, but a spear force capable of piercing all things had already shot skyward, straight into the heavens. He lowered his spear, stabbing through the air from a distance. Starlight seemed to flicker. The atmosphere exploded with a thunderous roar like a volcanic eruption. The air, torn apart by the wild, fierce force, formed countless rippling tornadoes around Akhar, emitting a wailing wind.
In that instant, the entire world seemed to pause for a moment. An invisible ripple, nearly capable of shattering and tearing apart everything around it, rushed against the lava and gale winds towards the warrior. The ground and rocks along its path were reduced to their most basic particles of dust, scattering with the wind.
But this did not shake Joshua. He did not even dodge. The warrior saw through the truth of his opponent's attack in a single glance: an ultra-high-speed micro-vibration impact, hundreds of thousands of times per second. This was indeed a power capable of reducing steel and diamond to ashes, a force that only the god-granted Orichalcum could withstand. But blocking it did not require too much effort. Joshua simply stomped his foot on the ground. With a rumbling boom, a slab of earth hundreds of meters long rose from the ground, forming an artificial hill that stood before him as a shield.
Boom!
With a single explosive sound, the hill was vibrated into basic particles within microseconds. But a streak of crimson light shot out from the particle cloud, creating a vacuum trail. Using the recoil from stomping the ground, Joshua himself shot forward like a rocket, trailing a long tail of flame, and crashed directly into Akhar, who was also charging towards him. The ground trembled beneath his feet. The two, having exchanged one blow, were now moving at speeds exceeding several times the speed of sound. They collided in an instant.
The battle had devolved into close-quarters combat within seconds!
As he flew at tremendous speed, the ancient blade of the Dragon-Hunting Sword Lance was lowered, trailing along the ground. The sand and soil along its path split open like the Red Sea parting before Moses, creating a massive fissure. The front end of the sword lance, sharp as a blade, was now wielded like a long-handled greatsword. Joshua raised it and brought it crashing down towards the knight on his horse. This strike was like a thunderclap exploding. A surging, violent white airwave, like a tsunami, slammed into the surrounding ground, instantly engulfing everything!
But Akhar was no weakling either. Astride his warhorse, the knight calmly faced his formidable foe. He let out a soft shout, his warhorse neighed, and his long spear transformed into a white rainbow, directly parrying the warrior's descending blade. Leveraging the power of the divine-blooded warhorse beneath him and his inherited strength, he could have lifted even a mountain peak with a single thrust of his spear. So how could a mere man and his spear pose a problem?
But one thing exceeded his expectations—Joshua's strength was greater than that of a mountain! The thunderous, overwhelming power struck as if a Titan giant were smashing down with a mountain. Even the knight's steel-like bones and tendons, capable of withstanding a meteor impact without injury, could not endure it. Akhar's arm snapped. The sound of bones breaking exploded. The Orichalcum-forged long spear was knocked askew. Although the warrior's slash was indeed deflected, the knight himself was blasted thousands of meters away, crashing headlong into the sand and mud, creating a deep crater!
"Excellent!"
A moment later, a furious roar erupted from the ground where Akhar had fallen. Surging air currents wildly pushed outward. A figure rose from the deep pit. A halo, like a ring of stars, flowed around his body. The knight's broken right arm, accompanied by sounds like grinding steel, snapped back into its original angle, completely healed. He then rose into the air as if defying gravity, hovering high above, glaring down at the earth with eyes full of anger.
This was the legacy of the Sixth Star Saint from ages past—using the gravitational forces of heaven and earth for one's own benefit. Akhar had once tempered his strength under a thousandfold gravity, believing that in terms of pure physical prowess, he was second to none. He never expected to suffer such a great loss at Joshua's hands today.
The long spear in the knight's hand rippled once more, a vibration even more intense than before. Akhar had intended to counterattack immediately, but now he had to halt and lower his spear. Because a crimson sun was charging straight towards him!
This was a burning sun, a sun of life, a sun that turned everything it passed into molten lava. This was the sun released by the man named Joshua, going all out, completely unshackling all restraints!
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Joshua's form was like light, like fire. He stomped heavily on the ground, step by step, as if explosives were detonating beneath his feet. The violent impacts made the earth tremble wildly, causing radial cracks to bloom across the barren plains. Pillars of sand and dust shot up behind him, then the intense heat radiating from the warrior melted them into a rain of molten rock.
And just as the rain of molten rock was about to fall upon the earth, Joshua had already crossed thousands of meters, arriving before Akhar with a scorching, burnt smell!
Bang! With one heavy step, the warrior brutally swung his long spear, wielding it like a club aimed at the knight's waist, sweeping horizontally. The intense heat turned the originally gray-black shaft of the spear into a blazing white, as if it were about to melt. This seemingly artless strike was the purest embodiment of brute force. The physical kinetic energy, causing the air to erupt with plasma, truly left the knight with no room to dodge.
But why dodge? Fully serious now, Akhar's gray pupils flickered with starlight. He snorted coldly, extended his left hand, and raised his palm upward. Instantly, all gravitational force within a radius of several hundred meters completely vanished. Due to the temporary disappearance of gravity, Joshua suddenly felt his footing give way. The wildly propulsive force that had been his strength now became a weakness. The long spear, which had completely enveloped Akhar's body and all possible escape angles, developed an unexpected flaw due to this power. Under the influence of its own momentum, it swept rapidly past the knight's head.
Joshua's previous attack was like a 'mountain' crashing down. This time, his attack was a genuine 'mountain' crashing down!
**[Falling Star]!**
The Orichalcum long spear, now completely shrouded in starlight, seemed to become a small celestial body itself. It carried a terrifying power that was both heavy and fluid, causing a series of explosions in the atmosphere with the slightest movement. Just a small shift was enough to engulf an area several kilometers around in pure white airwaves. Facing the sword lance thrust at him at dozens of times the speed of sound, Akhar showed no intention of dodging or parrying. Instead, he calmly and solemnly raised his spear and thrust!
Boom! Boom, boom, boom, boom——————
As if a true star had fallen, the mere simple thrust of the silver spear sent a piercing sonic wave sweeping across heaven and earth. In comparison, the 'lighter' Dragon-Hunting Sword Lance was swept away by the terrifying residual force with almost no resistance, flying out of Joshua's hands. The silver spear then immediately ground the warrior's right hand, which held the spear, into pulp, before completely piercing through his entire right side of his chest, blasting it into nothingness!
Layers of gravitational ripples surged violently. Under the colossal force of hundreds of billions of tons, even Joshua's flesh and blood could not hold for a single fleeting moment. But Akhar's gaze sharpened. Although he was pleased with the result, he was puzzled as to why things had turned out this way. Given the warrior's strength, even if he couldn't directly block the Falling Star, he would never be so foolish as to 'throw his life away'!
But soon, he had no time to think—because the warrior with half his chest shattered did not fall along with his knocked-away spear. Instead, behind Joshua, countless drops of blood spontaneously absorbed the ambient free energy of heaven and earth, rapidly turning black and exploding. The powerful propulsive force sent the grinning warrior directly in front of Akhar. And then—
Came a heavy punch, one capable of shattering mountains and pulverizing peaks forged from Adamantite into dust!