It was still the same tactic as the Battle of the Sea of Bitterness—a descent of the true body—and still the same individuals. Only the battlefield had shifted from the Sea of Bitterness to the interior of the Splendor of the Many Realms.
The Heaven of Joy and Bliss had already become part of the Pure Land Grotto-Heaven, with even the small Pure Land shrine erected at its very center. Enveloped in the twofold embrace of incense and faith, the fierce figures who had secured their Bodhisattva ranks in advance were already regarded as part of the Pure Land Grotto-Heaven, just like the devotees guided into the Buddhist kingdom to live.
When Wei Yuan deployed them into the Splendor of the Many Realms, not only did they maintain their original strength, but they also received the blessing of mighty power bestowed by Wei Yuan's true body, growing even more potent.
Naturally, doing this was not entirely without flaws. The Heavenly Dao would still be alerted, continuously intensifying its scrutiny. However, human luck could slay immortals, and it could also deceive heaven; thus, Wei Yuan masked the flaws by consuming human luck.
For this battle, Wei Yuan invested ten million human luck each into Feng Tingyu, Ji Liuli, and Bao Yun, while Zhang Sheng consumed a staggering fifty million!
With such a massive expenditure of human luck, Wei Yuan even suspected that even without the power of the Sea of Bitterness as a screen, the Heavenly Dao might turn a blind eye anyway.
Only that streak of platinum sword qi fell a bit short, but that was compared to Zhang Sheng. If compared to other immortal plants, the might of that sword strike was truly peerless, slaughtering Scenery Command cultivators with utter ease.
Still, that sword qi was indeed beyond Wei Yuan's expectations, and accordingly, Bao Yun had no need to strike.
Wei Yuan was actually somewhat curious about the current state of the celestial laurel tree, but every time he looked, all he saw was a lone little sapling growing in a lunar crater, showing no change at all. As for why it had gone to the full moon or why it loved dwelling in a crater, Wei Yuan had no idea either.
At this moment, four more great formations appeared outside Central City. Tens of thousands of cultivators poured into them, continuously funneling Dao power into the arrays to slowly bring them to life.
Towering between heaven and earth, Wei Yuan waited until one of the formations finished charging, then flicked his fingers lightly. A ten-thousand-zhang sword light materialized out of thin air and slashed fiercely toward Heavenly Bone!
Harnessing the combined power of a hundred thousand cultivators, this vast, mighty strike was capable of harming those at Scenery Command perfection; even Heavenly Bone was unwilling to take such a sword blow for nothing.
Crossing two bone blades to block, Heavenly Bone was sent tumbling a thousand zhang back through the air as the vast sword light flooded heaven and earth! The might of this strike was nearly equivalent to an all-out slash from Xihe.
Another great formation finished charging. Wei Yuan flicked his fingers once more, and another streak of sword light vaulted across heaven and earth, knocking Heavenly Bone back again just as it returned to its original position.
Heavenly Bone roared in ceaseless, thunderous rage, but every few breaths brought another brilliant ray of sword light. In mere moments, Heavenly Bone's bone blades were scarred all over.
Xihe filled in the intervals between the sword lights Wei Yuan unleashed. With breathing room to recover her energy, her grotto-heaven aura swiftly replenished itself while Wei Yuan struck, significantly extending how long she could sustain the fight.
Without anyone noticing when it began, flecks of glazed radiance drifted around Heavenly Bone, coalescing from time to time into a glazed pagoda.
Whenever this occurred, Heavenly Bone had to strike out swiftly to shatter the pagoda. Otherwise, if the pagoda descended, it would suppress a part of its body and cause its rank to plummet. It was currently inside Wei Yuan's grotto-heaven, where a drop in rank would be fatal. Once its rank fell, even the platinum sword qi would be able to sever its bone blades.
With Wei Yuan joining the fray and the four formations cycling to unleash sword qi, Heavenly Bone finally felt strained. Gradually, it was forced to block more and more, while its counterattacks grew fewer and fewer.
After fighting bitterly for a while, Heavenly Bone suddenly realized something: Wei Yuan had been attacking for so long, so why had the Heavenly Dao still not reacted?! In a fury, Heavenly Bone roared at the vault of heaven once more—this time in the voice of the Great Dao, cursing foully!
The Heavenly Dao finally reacted. A force of suppressive tribulation destruction descended from the sky, crashing directly onto Heavenly Bone. Faint tribulation flames instantly ignited across its body, scorching its bone rind until it cracked and turned brittle.
Heavenly Bone shrieked in pain. Fierce as it was, it immediately erupted with magic power, snuffing out the tribulation flames.
Once the tribulation fire was extinguished, though Heavenly Bone was even more enraged, it dared not curse again. The Heavenly Dao of this realm was no inanimate thing. If an ant cursed it, it didn't care; it wouldn't even hear. But for an immortal-rank entity to insult the Heavenly Dao was to make an enemy of heaven itself!
At this point, Hongmo, who had not made a move and had only been lending magic power to Heavenly Bone, suddenly cried out, "Withdraw the wrathful manifestation at once! You're suffering a backlash!"
Only then did Heavenly Bone realize that its furious rage was abnormally excessive—the exact harbinger of a divine art backlash. It had directed the wrathful manifestation with all its might at Wei Yuan. If Wei Yuan had shown no reaction at all, that would have been one thing. But Wei Yuan had seemed to fall for it completely at first, his mental cultivation appearing riddled with flaws, only to suddenly slip out of it. As a result, the divine art's power had nowhere to go, rebounding entirely back onto Heavenly Bone.
Having finally seen through the truth, Hongmo said, "Wei Yuan is merely guiding it; he isn't attacking!"
"Then his sword art—" Halfway through its sentence, Heavenly Bone realized it too. Wei Yuan's flicking motion with his fingers was just a gesture!
Seeing that Wei Yuan would not take the bait no matter what, Heavenly Bone suddenly slashed around in madness, cutting the battlefield to pieces. Then, raising a bone blade, it cleaved toward the array down below from afar.
The bone blade unleashed a streak of dark light hundreds of zhang long, instantly cleaving the formation down the middle. The cultivators near the fissure did not even have time to utter a groan before being reduced to ash and vapor.
Yet this scene suddenly dissolved like a reflection on water. The formation remained completely intact, while the dark light's true trajectory had taken a bizarre turn and flown out beyond the sky.
"Heavenly Demon!" Hongmo immediately recognized that faint, elusive aura.
Heavenly Bone hacked another blade toward the formation, and the blade light similarly curved away, flying beyond the sky. This time, both Dharma Gods saw clearly: someone was using a Heavenly Demon divine art to warp the blade light's target. The blade light that Heavenly Bone perceived as flying straight forward had actually curved and flown off into outer space.
From this point on, the battle fell into a stalemate.
By now, Heavenly Bone's surroundings were awash with churning Dao power and divine arts. Sword light surged like a tide, and blade qi churned like an ocean. Both sides clashed countless times every instant, mighty Dao techniques and spells cancelling each other out, forcing even Wei Yuan to exert all his strength just to barely maintain the battlefield's boundaries.
In Wei Yuan's field of vision, a number suddenly popped up above Heavenly Bone's head. It fluctuated erratically before gradually stabilizing.
This number marked Heavenly Bone's total magic power. Each time Heavenly Bone unleashed a high-cost divine art, its aura dipped slightly, and Wei Yuan's powerful divine sense naturally captured these minute shifts. With enough occurrences and data, the Splendor of the Many Realms roughly calculated Heavenly Bone's total magic power, continuously optimizing and adjusting as the battle progressed, growing ever more precise.
Heavenly Bone's magic power was slowly depleting, yet its strength was formidable. At this pace, it could keep fighting for dozens of days.
*Monitor realm-heaven Dao power levels*—Wei Yuan issued another task. Moments later, the corresponding number appeared as well.
Monitoring his own realm-heaven was far easier. The Splendor of the Many Realms possessed numerous methods to breathe in and out world essence, and with Immortal Monarch Yanshi's immortal art enhancements, its Dao power recovery rate was greatly accelerated. At the current tempo, it could contend with Heavenly Bone for a month.
Yet Wei Yuan was not dueling Heavenly Bone alone; he was simultaneously suppressing five grotto-heavens. As those grotto-heavens were wiped out one by one, the Dao power expended on them could be redirected to suppress Heavenly Bone, thereby securing the victory in one stroke.
Watching the fluctuating comparison of magic power in his vision, Wei Yuan felt that with the battle in a stalemate, he needed to select attack methods that were immense in power yet low in consumption. Those four formations powered by cultivators were actually not very efficient; after all, the magic power tier of low-ranking cultivators was fundamentally too low. One had to be at least at the dharma idol stage to offer exceptional cost-effectiveness.
With a thought, Wei Yuan issued a summons. In the next moment, a steel giant plummeted from the heavens. Its massive body of hundreds of zhang commanded a substantial presence even on this battlefield crowded with powerhouses.
The moment the steel puppet appeared, it fired countless missiles from the honeycomb launchers on its shoulders, blasting toward Heavenly Bone.
Chapter 1285