The iron spheres in the air grew fewer and fewer. Losses soon exceeded eighty percent, dwindling from tens of thousands to a mere few thousand scattered sparsely around the square.
The Heaven Tier and Earth Tier avatars had not been barred from retreating. A small handful were terrified out of their wits and did not dare take the field again, but most glanced at the new exchange list, gritted their teeth, stepped back into their avatars, and deployed once more.
Most cultivators who had reached this stage possessed firm Dao hearts, and every one of them had braved mortal perils more than once to grasp a fleeting Dao opportunity. This war to reboot heaven and earth was fraught with extreme danger, but if they survived, the gains would be unprecedented in their lifetimes. How many tens of thousands of years had to pass before witnessing a reboot of heaven and earth? And when heaven and earth restarted, out of all the myriad cultivators, how many ever had the chance to participate?
Seeing that the defenses of the Land of Vitality had weakened to their limit and possessed no further counterattacks up their sleeve, the figure named Wusuo finally took the next step and planted himself onto Expedition Square.
The other three cursed vehemently when they saw this, yet could do nothing. The first-to-scale merit of reaping the new world had already fallen into his hands.
Before Wusuo could rejoice, a sudden chill swept through his entire body! Several previously unseen halls emerged around the square, and countless reserve puppets poured out, lunging toward him. At the same time, immense suction welled up from the square, making him feel as though he were trapped in a mire, unable even to take flight!
Wusuo's two arms dissolved into mist, ending in thousand-foot colossal hands that slammed furiously down into the horde of avatars! Amid deafening roars, countless avatars were smashed to pieces, yet a dozen or so were only heavily damaged, turning around to inflict wounds on him in return.
Among them, an avatar of dark red suddenly sprouted a spike from its head and stabbed into his giant misty hand. A dark-red stain rapidly spread outward; wherever it passed, a burning sensation hit first, followed by a total loss of sensation, turning grayish-black and sloughing off in vast swathes.
In contrast, although the counterattacks of the other avatars blew gaping holes through his mist palms, combined they did not match the true damage wrought by this dark-red toxin.
Wusuo could hardly believe it. His mist body could be poisoned? Wasn't that just like poisoning a rock?
Seeing the battered avatar staggering toward him, Wusuo shifted his thoughts, and countless streams of mist materialized out of thin air, instantly freezing all the avatars where they stood.
Sun Yu, Wang Hu, and the others immediately discovered that their avatars could not budge, and their divine senses were trapped inside, completely unable to escape.
Wusuo appeared before these avatars in a single stride. With a cross of his hands, he tore one straight to shreds. The instant the avatar ruptured, a translucent silhouette emerged, yet even it was entwined by several wisps of mist, unable to break free.
With a savage grin, Wusuo grabbed hold of the true spirit and squeezed with all his might.
Yet at that very instant, beams of immortal light burst forth from the true spirit, blazing in seven colors!
Wusuo himself possessed only five-colored immortal light. These seven-colored beams instantly pierced his giant hand and detonated with a tremendous blast, not only blowing his arm into nothingness but catching nearly half his torso, as though a chunk of him had been erased from existence.
Wusuo was both shocked and enraged. Only now did he realize that the seven-colored radiance was not immortal light, but the light of merit! Seven colors approached great perfection; only innate merit from the creation of heaven and earth possessed such light. Even rebooting a world could not attain this stage; seven-colored merit could appear only when a world became complete and brimmed with vibrant life.
Yet this soul clearly bore acquired merit, and yet it shone with seven-colored light. Just what had he done? Had he saved all living beings across an entire great world?
Blasted by seven-colored merit, much of the damage was not merely permanent, but would progressively worsen, requiring vast amounts of karmic luck and cultivation to offset. The interest alone was more than enough to give him a massive headache.
Had there been any other choice, Wusuo would never have laid a single finger on someone who had attained sainthood through merit. But there was a fundamental difference between merit and karmic destiny angling: when caught by karmic destiny angling, one felt an overwhelming impulse to do a specific thing, an anomaly that often alerted individuals of profound cultivation. Thus, the higher one's realm, the less effective karmic destiny angling became.
Merit, however, was different. Merit made one feel that doing something was simply the natural course of things, no different from eating or drinking water in daily life. For instance, just a moment ago Wusuo had acted on a whim, casually grabbing an avatar to make an example of first, only to pick the vessel of merit out of the crowd. It was utterly impossible to guard against.
After the seven-colored light of merit erupted, Wusuo watched helplessly as a translucent silhouette escaped from the multicolored glow and flew into the great hall at the center of the square. What he had crushed in his grip was purely the opponent's merit. In other words, he had taken the full brunt of the backlash without inflicting a single scratch on his opponent's true body.
Wusuo's mood was as foul as could be. He leaped into the air, wanting nothing more than to put distance between himself and this damned place. A mere rebooting world that had not even taken full shape had not only fielded a baffling horde of puppet warriors, but also harbored someone who had attained sainthood through merit. The enemy had clearly planned this long in advance, just waiting for him to step into their trap.
Inside Expedition Hall, True Monarch Chuhe opened his eyes and wiped the cold sweat from his brow, repeatedly saying, "Close, that was close! If not for Brother Chicken's help, I fear I wouldn't have made it back."
On a perch beside him, a small, fiery-red bird nodded, indicating it was all in a day's work. Ever since Chuhe had achieved the rank of True Monarch through the Dao of Merit, the immortal chicken had gone from adoptive father to Brother Chicken.
At that moment, Wei Yuan pushed open the door and entered. "Did you get hurt, Martial Uncle?" he asked.
Chuhe replied, "I'm fine. The merit was sufficient; he couldn't do anything to me. Only now do I understand why you kept urging me to work on infrastructure projects these past few years. Without the merit from those massive projects, I doubt I would have made it out unscathed today."
Wei Yuan said, "As long as you are well. Rest first, Martial Uncle, and then you may leave. I can handle the rest of the battle myself."
Chuhe's expression grew stern. "How could I do that? At a critical juncture, if I sacrifice this vessel of merit, I can drag three more down with me. Say no more—this is my duty as well."
With the battle pressing, Wei Yuan could only offer a salute before departing.
Out on the square, Wusuo had finally managed to restore his body. Dreading to stay any longer, he leaped upward. But the moment he rose, billowing black mist suddenly erupted from an avatar nearby, instantly smothering all the misty chains. Then the black mist expanded, engulfing Wusuo as well.
Wusuo instantly lost control of his body and realized his components were breaking down at high speed, yet he could not move at all.
This could not truly stump Wusuo, however. Boundless mist surged from within him to cancel out the black mist. The disparity in scale between the two sides was too great; the black mist was soon routed, and under the impact of the five-colored immortal light, it collapsed completely.
Yet one thing left Wusuo uneasy: the natal mist he had manifested had gained no advantage while clashing with the black gas; the two had fought to an absolute standstill.
Wusuo was at the Immortal Tier, while the black mist was merely at the dharma idol level. The difference in their status was like heaven and earth, yet they had fought to a draw. If the master of that black mist were to become an immortal, what would become of the world?
How could such a tiny place harbor so many monsters?
Wusuo dared not linger a moment longer. Enduring the heavy gravitational pull, he forced his way toward outer space. Just then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a clear, brilliant sword light slashing forth, cleaving through the immortal formation, sin-beasts, black-armored giants—even splitting chaos itself in two!
The sword light moved unhurriedly, striking toward one of the companions who had come with Wusuo. That person dodged frantically, yet only drew closer and closer to the blade light.
In another direction, starlight suddenly filled the sky. Each speck of starlight was actually a blue grain of sand. That was Star Sand's true form; revealing it proved that Star Sand had encountered a mortal crisis and was desperately attempting to flee for his life. As long as a single grain escaped, he could be reborn from it.
Wusuo could hardly fathom it. How had two of his teammates suddenly run into mortal danger all at once?
In the void, a bizarre sunlight shone forth, red to the absolute extreme, vitality so dense it seemed poised to erupt. In an instant, it illuminated every grain of star sand and imbued each with a trace of vitality.
Then the sunlight receded, and a colossal full moon appeared in the void. Whether compared to the immortal formation or the Land of Vitality, all paled beside this genuine celestial body. Though the full moon was merely a phantom, its true intent was fully present, carrying a terrifying aura of Antiquity.
The instant the full moon appeared, it exerted an immediate pull on all the star sand. Individual grains were too small to break free from a celestial body's gravitation, and having been tainted with vitality, they had nowhere to hide. Grain after grain plunged uncontrollably toward the moon. The moon's surface was coated in a layer of shadow, and once the grains of sand fell into that shadow, there was no return.
Chapter 1435