Not only that...
To his mounting terror, Lu Tian discovered that he seemed trapped within a horrifying expanse of inscribed talismans!
The sealing spirit incantations forged from the three heavenly flames ruthlessly suppressed his demonic qi.
He could draw upon barely eighty percent of the true power of his Heavenly Demon Physique.
Gradually, Lu Tian's aura began to wane.
His injuries grew heavier and more severe, while Li Guanqi and the others coordinated with ever-greater precision.
Yet none of them were having an easy time either. Every one of them was bathed in blood and gravely wounded.
Even Jiuxiao bore countless gruesome wounds across his body, his dragon scales shattered, his flesh a mangled mess.
Beneath the roiling demonic qi clinging to the wounds, his flesh decayed at a rate visible to the naked eye.
Suddenly!
Gu Li's voice rang in everyone's ears as his figure burst forth from the void beside Jiuxiao!
Grave solemnity was etched across Gu Li's face. His hands rapidly shifted through incantation gestures, and he roared, "Go!!"
The moment the words left his mouth, Li Guanqi and the others did not hesitate in the slightest. Teleporting ten thousand zhang away in an instant, they retreated behind the gates of heavenly flame.
At the very heart of the turbulent storm of primal energy, Lu Tian's figure slowly materialized from the shattered void.
By now, Lu Tian was in a state of utter wretchedness. He was missing hands and feet, his chest had caved in, and broken ribs protruded straight through his flesh.
The hand clutching his sword trembled uncontrollably as blood trickled down the blade.
One of his eyes had been pulverized by Cao Yan, the bones of his face fractured.
Looking like a madman, Lu Tian felt an immediate surge of foreboding as he watched them withdraw.
Yet before he could react, the space around heaven and earth abruptly twisted.
Fiery red inscribed talismans emerged in massive swathes from the void.
Densely packed, they numbered a full one million!
Blotting out the sky, the talismans encompassed everything within a radius of a thousand zhang. Arranged together, they formed a colossal sphere that sealed Lu Tian completely inside.
For the very first time, terror crept onto Lu Tian's face.
His pupils shrank to pinpricks, and his face instantly turned dead white. The terrifying aura, vast enough to tear heaven and earth apart, filled him with dread.
A chill shot straight from the soles of his feet to the crown of his skull, his hairs standing on end, his heart pounding violently.
With a flick of his wrist, Lu Tian produced dozens of pitch-black little bells!
The instant he raised his hand to shatter them, malevolent spirits howled!
Endless azure phantoms shrieked as they darted frantically through the air.
Hundreds of thousands of azure wronged souls crowded together into a bizarre ocean of vengeful ghosts.
Surging demonic qi erupted outward, rapidly spreading to cover a radius of a thousand zhang.
The sky over the domain suddenly plunged into darkness, as if consumed entirely by demonic qi.
Layer upon layer formed a defensive barrier around Lu Tian.
Yet in Gu Li's eyes, all of this was completely futile.
"Detonate!"
A low murmur fell from Gu Li's lips. His robes snapped fiercely in the wind as violent ripples of primal energy surged forth.
In an instant, over a million inscribed talismans ignited all at once...
BOOM! Rumble!
RUMBLE, RUMBLE, RUMBLE, RUMBLE!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
A catastrophic explosion erupted, deafening and absolute. In that single breath, everyone was stripped of their hearing.
Li Guanqi and the others bled from all seven facial orifices as the roaring cataclysm drowned out every other sound in existence.
With his own eyes, Li Guanqi watched the gates of heavenly flame before them endure for barely a breath before instantly shattering to pieces.
Just as the blast was about to engulf the group, Pengluo suddenly appeared.
In a flash of silver radiance, he directly displaced everyone away!
A pale-faced fatty was tossed out of the void by Pengluo.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Aftershocks of the blast rippled outward wave upon wave, practically leveling the entire domain.
Unable to withstand such monstrous power any longer, the sturdy domain was torn into countless jagged fragments.
Amidst the pitch-black void, an ocean of fire suddenly flared to life, engulfing everything within a radius of five hundred li!
The explosion raged for more than ten breaths. Even the fabric of the void could not endure the force; it blasted clean through space, pulverizing the mountain ranges in the outside world to flat ground!
The earth convulsed. Every beast dwelling within the mountains, regardless of rank, was annihilated by the blast.
More than a hundred peaks rising hundreds of zhang high vanished one after another, and the surrounding mountain ranges within a hundred li were erased in an instant.
The ground fractured and turned scorched black, riddled everywhere with deep craters and chasms.
Gu Li's face grew pale. His throat bobbed, and a trickle of blood spilled from the corner of his mouth.
Swish!
Seeing this, Li Guanqi flashed to Gu Li's side and asked in a low voice, "Are you all right?"
His concern was well-founded...
In that single instant just now, Gu Li had needed to manipulate one million inscribed talismans to detonate simultaneously.
There had been no way to recall his divine sense in time; he could only allow it to be forcibly severed by the blast!
Now, the Dao platform within Gu Li's sea of consciousness was unstable, even showing fine fractures.
Gu Li waved his hand dismissively and swallowed a medicinal pill.
Then he produced another pill and tossed it to Tang Ru, who was lying in Pengluo's arms in the distance.
"Is he all right?"
Though Pengluo had assumed human form, his temperament had not changed in the slightest.
With a snap, he shoved a radish as thick as a forearm right into Tang Ru's mouth.
"What could possibly happen to him? I'm right here; he won't die."
Tang Ru was already nearly suffocating, his face turning the dark purple of pig liver.
Pengluo hastily yanked the radish back out. "Sorry, sorry, I forgot, I forgot..."
Before his voice could fade, everyone abruptly fell silent!
In unison, their gazes turned toward the depths of the void!
Amidst the violent flares of flame stood a colossal shadow.
Lu Tian was on his last breath, reduced to skin and bones. His flesh was torn away to nothingness, his broken body stripped of all limbs.
All that remained was a head and half a torso...
Swish!
Li Guanqi flashed forward to shield everyone behind him. Narrowing his eyes, he stared into the distance with grave intensity!
Carrying the massive Immortal Ascension Platform on his back, Youming held Lu Tian, his face dark as a thundercloud!
Mouthful after mouthful of blood poured from Lu Tian's lips; he was barely recognizable as human.
By contrast, Li Guanqi and his companions could not even be considered heavily injured.
Beneath Youming's feet lay a vast, blood-red formation.
Lu Tian's feeble voice drifted intermittently: "Merge... a-ascend..."
Youming's gaze remained completely calm.
Just as Li Guanqi expected Youming to fly into a rage...
Youming's fingers suddenly crushed into Lu Tian's skull, digging into it like hooked claws!
The sight of Youming hoisting Lu Tian's mangled body in his grip utterly shocked everyone!
Even Li Guanqi had not anticipated that the two halves of this twin soul would turn out like this...
A bizarre smile suddenly spread across Youming's face.
He cast his eyes down at Lu Tian, his gaze unreadable as he sneered, "You truly are a piece of trash..."
"Heh, merge our souls?"
"Of course I will merge them. But garbage like you is only fit to serve as my nourishment."
Madness flooded Lu Tian's lone remaining eye, gleaming with unhinged fury.
Hearing Youming's words, his expression grew as ashen as death. He could die; he could become the sustenance in Youming's mouth!
But... that had to be of his own free will!
Lu Tian's roar suddenly ripped through the heavens!
"Li Guanqi! Didn't you take my Soul Guiding Lamp fragment?! Kill me! Kill me!"
"Hahahahaha! Kill me!"
Chapter 1144