Wei Yuan transformed into a meteor, concentrating his entire shamanic power into a single point, and hurtled his body straight toward Leiying.
Furious, Leiying bellowed, "Stupid bird, courting death!" A talon came crashing down right toward Wei Yuan's head. As the claw struck, shamanic power blanketed an expanse of a thousand zhang. Everything within range was snared as though by an immense net, inexorably drawn toward Leiying's colossal claw.
Wei Yuan flew helplessly toward the massive talon spanning several zhang.
Yet this was precisely what Wei Yuan wanted. He tucked his wings tight around himself and threw every ounce of his strength into the impact, riding the pulling force to ram Leiying with savage fury!
The collision was like an ancient god crashing into Mount Buzhou—the surrounding world trembled with the shock!
Streaks of pale gray instantly materialized out of thin air, drifting toward the two of them of their own accord.
From the impact, Leiying was sent reeling backward a hundred zhang, while Wei Yuan tumbled and spiraled far off at an angle.
Leiying's four grayish-black hooked talons had initially clamped down on Wei Yuan's body, but each talon was three zhang long, while Wei Yuan had shrunk down to the size of an ordinary mortal and was moving at blistering speed. Leiying's claws scraped across Wei Yuan's bizarre wings, throwing off countless sparks, yet only managed to rip away two feathers!
Wei Yuan's momentum was ferocious and his force terrifying. His diminutive body hit like several million jin, smashing straight through Leiying's grasp and slamming into the center of his palm!
The flesh at the center of the giant claw was hard as iron, its black outer hide refined until it gleamed with a metallic sheen, virtually indestructible. Yet if the claw was hard as refined steel, Wei Yuan's body was refined steel itself. Bearing ferocious momentum and boundless brute force, Wei Yuan's impact punched a depression right into the center of the claw, its surface cracking in an instant.
Leiying had never imagined that in a contest of brute force, he would actually come out slightly worse. Could a mere Great Shaman truly possess a physical body stronger than his own?
Following the collision, Wei Yuan had a clear assessment of their relative strength and possessed a general battle plan, which Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World was working at full capacity to refine.
Yet for some reason, those repeated cries of "stupid bird" lingered in his mind, stoking a rage he could not suppress.
Staring at Wei Yuan's wings with a solemn expression, Leiying said, "Hold on! To think you possess genuine Spirit Shaman methods at such a young age. That means your clan must be prominent figures among the Spirit Shamans, and everyone probably knows one another. Little stupid bird, who is your ancestor? Let's hear it!"
Wei Yuan had nearly calmed his temper, but hearing this, he could tolerate it no longer and flew into a fury!
Without a word, his body swelled abruptly. In the blink of an eye, he stood dozens of zhang tall—twice the size of Leiying—and brought a fist like a small mountain crashing down upon him!
Leiying slammed an iron wing against Wei Yuan's fist, setting off several shockwave ripples. The ripples spread a thousand zhang away in an instant, washing over the village below.
Everything within the village froze in place. Every Shaman ceased moving, turned rigid as a statue. A moment later, houses and Shamans alike took on an ashen gray pallor, then crumbled into ash.
Beneath the washing deluge of power from two great powerhouses, this tiny hamlet was like a kingdom built on foam, obliterated at the slightest touch.
From the ashen dust, plumes of gray mist rose again, drifting toward Wei Yuan and Leiying.
Seeing the gray mist approach, Leiying yelled, "That's calamity qi! We have to take this fight higher up!"
Wei Yuan, however, flipped his giant hands over and seized the chance to grab Leiying's wings. Just as Leiying prepared to grapple him with all his might, another pair of arms sprouted from beneath Wei Yuan's ribs and clamped around his throat!
Leiying was utterly shocked. He hadn't expected Wei Yuan to be so sinister as to hide an extra pair of arms! What's more, their strength and dexterity were in no way inferior, showing they had been thoroughly tempered in daily training.
Now Leiying had only his pair of iron talons left, but Wei Yuan was cunning—he wrapped his legs straight around Leiying's waist, leaving his deadliest iron claws with no room to strike.
Leiying opened his beak, preparing to unleash his innate divine ability, Soul-Snatching Hawk Screech. But the hands clamped around his neck tightened with lethal force, terrifying might nearly bursting Leiying's windpipe and choking the cry straight back down into his belly.
The two wrestled and tumbled in brutal melee. Although Wei Yuan held a slight advantage, using a Shaman form was never as seamless or natural as his own dharma body. Moreover, Leiying was an old Nether Shaman; even with his lifespan near its end and his body deteriorating, his strength was only slightly inferior to Wei Yuan's.
In the heat of the moment, Wei Yuan could not easily finish him off.
The two massive bodies grappled, rolling and flailing wildly through the air before violently slamming into the earth, carving out a crater hundreds of zhang wide. All the Shamans in a nearby small village were shaken to death by the shockwave, and several more wisps of gray calamity qi drifted up from the ruins.
Shocked and enraged, Leiying wanted to take the fight to the skies, but why would Wei Yuan care about the lives of Shamans or the ruin of the Wu domain? He deliberately kept Leiying dragged into low altitude, smashing down wherever there were villages.
Seeing Wei Yuan fight with such reckless madness finally terrified Leiying.
He struggled desperately to fly higher, but the moment they reached a height of a thousand zhang, Wei Yuan suddenly manifested a block of nether iron upon himself. The sudden addition of several hundred thousand jin crushed Leiying under its weight. Wei Yuan drove him plunging back toward the earth, demolishing a small mountain in their descent.
This small mountain happened to be a spiritual mountain, where a secretive minor Shaman sect preserved its lineage. Out of nowhere, catastrophe struck from the heavens—a meteor plummeted from above, smashing directly into the center of the sect gates! The mountain sank downward in a jolt, then violently blew apart, leveling the entire sect to the ground.
The horrific storm of shamanic power destroyed every building and restricted ground. Every Shaman, human, and beast nearby was torn to shreds. Even the spiritual vein beneath the sect shattered; the earth split open, spewing forth plumes of green glow from the fissures.
With a spiritual mountain destroyed, a massive swath of calamity qi rose from the ground and burrowed into Wei Yuan's and Leiying's bodies.
What left Leiying both outraged and baffled was that although Wei Yuan was clearly the instigator, the vast majority of the calamity qi seeped into Leiying's own body, while Wei Yuan absorbed less than a tenth of it.
No injustice under heaven could compare to this!
Through all their close-quarters grappling, Wei Yuan had still been unable to deal a fatal blow. After all, they were separated by an entire major cultivation realm. Even though Leiying's domain had already been returned to the Nether Cold Realm, severely diminishing his strength, every Nether Shaman had once been the foremost elite of their era, a rare genius not to be underestimated.
Leiying's hand-to-hand brawling skills were far from weak. Every time, he managed to counterattack at the exact instant Wei Yuan exerted force, dispersing most of the physical strength Wei Yuan built up. His only disadvantage was that Wei Yuan was larger and possessed an extra pair of arms.
Amid the entanglement, Leiying struck Wei Yuan with a headbutt that left Wei Yuan dizzy and seeing stars. His grip around Leiying's neck loosened, nearly allowing Leiying to break free. Flailing and clawing blindly, Wei Yuan instinctively grabbed a handful of soft down and yanked hard—actually tearing out a fistful of feathers.
Wei Yuan swept his divine sense over him and found where the down could be plucked: Leiying's neck, where fine down grew thick between the iron feathers. Plucking the down normally meant risking cuts from the iron feathers, but with Wei Yuan's physical body, he had no fear of them. He reached right beneath the feathers, grabbing not only the soft down but a fistful of quill bases, and yanked violently once more!
Leiying roared. Seeing Wei Yuan's hands full of feathers, his rage surpassed even his pain.
Driven into a feral frenzy, he snapped his beak viciously toward Wei Yuan, but the wings behind Wei Yuan suddenly expanded, and a wing slapped Leiying across the head, leaving him dizzy and disoriented as well. The pair of wings was unimaginably tough.
Taking advantage of the moment, Wei Yuan tore out several more fistfuls of feathers.
Suddenly, every feather on Leiying bristled upright, lightning flickering on every feather tip. A horrific torrent of thunderous power erupted like a raging tide, instantly numbing Wei Yuan's entire body. Using the momentum, Leiying broke free and spread his wings to flee.
With a single wing flap, he covered a hundred zhang. His wingbeats appeared slow, but given his massive frame, his speed was blindingly swift.
The bases of the feathers in Wei Yuan's grasp still bore a trace of Leiying's blood. Suddenly, a tremor ran through Wei Yuan's heart. He flicked his tongue to lick the speck of blood, his gaze turning deep and fathomless.
Having tasted a trace of Leiying's blood, his dharma idol stirred. Wei Yuan now understood where the catalyst for his advancement lay. A dharma idol like Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World required an offering to advance. Only by sacrificing a powerhouse of at least the Scenery Command realm to heaven and earth could Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World obtain that most crucial spark of spiritual fire and break through to Mind Nurturing.
Watching Leiying flee into the distance, Wei Yuan instantly snapped his wings wide and gave a forceful flap. He sped forward like a ghost, trailing afterimages through the air, and caught up to Leiying in a split second. Snatching hold of him, the two slammed violently into the earth. A colossal mushroom cloud billowed upward, wiping out two nearby villages in an instant!
Shock and rage warred in Leiying. He could not comprehend how Wei Yuan had caught up so fast. Wei Yuan's earlier words suddenly flashed through his mind: "I am a Spirit Shaman." He startled in fright, yet felt utterly bewildered. Wei Yuan's speed was nothing short of miraculous. Leiying was renowned for his speed, yet he had been overtaken in the blink of an eye. This was unquestionably a Scenery Command method—and exceptionally rare even among Scenery Command experts.
Naturally, Leiying didn't know that Wei Yuan's wings had actually come from a true Spirit Shaman, Ju Ling. When Wei Yuan surrendered Ju Ling's body, he had kept the wings. Preparing to venture deep into the Wu domain, he had refined them, altering their appearance before bringing them along.
Unable to escape and with his weakness exposed, feathers flew in flurry after flurry until Wei Yuan had plucked a large bald patch on his neck. Seeing Wei Yuan begin plucking feathers from his wings, the top of Leiying's skull suddenly split open, shooting forth a beam of lightning that sped off into the distance and vanished in an instant.
Seeing Leiying send out a distress signal, Wei Yuan had no time to slowly pluck feathers. A strand of seaweed suddenly appeared in his hand, which he wrapped straight around Leiying's neck!
The moment he caught the scent of the seaweed, an indescribable terror surged through Leiying. His power scattered, and the defenses of his dharma body plummeted by nearly half.
The Crimson Night Immortal-Slaying Sword reappeared in Wei Yuan's grasp. Three dragon guards emerged, pinning down the iron talons and wings. Above Wei Yuan's head, the head of a three-eyed bird faintly manifested, opening its massive beak and inhaling forcefully at Leiying!
A translucent figure of Leiying faintly separated from his body, his soul nearly sucked out by the three-eyed bird's head. But no sooner had he managed to steady his soul than Wei Yuan, gripping the Crimson Night Immortal-Slaying Sword inverted with both hands, drove it viciously into the featherless patch on his neck, plunging it in up to the hilt!
Then, as if toppling Mount Buzhou, Wei Yuan shoved the hilt with all his strength, swinging it in a half-circle like a guillotine blade to sever Leiying's cervical spine!
The three-eyed bird's head inhaled once more. Leiying's soul could resist no longer and was swallowed down into its belly.
Afterward, Wei Yuan hoisted Leiying's corpse. With rapid beats of his wings, his silhouette flickered throughout the entire town. In an instant, he seized dozens of shamanesses and children—whether decoys or real, so long as Wei Yuan thought they were pitiful, he grabbed them all.
Then, using his Dao power to haul the great clump of Shamans, Wei Yuan flapped his wings, engaged eight thrusters for added boost, and flew at full speed toward Qingming.
Chapter 584