The gazes of the cultivators across the Congyun Sea inevitably fell upon the two of them in unison.
Seeing that both were grievously wounded, threads of greed could not help but surge in their hearts.
After all, what cultivator could resist the temptation of Dao Integration?
Just as this treacherous atmosphere began to spread among the crowd of cultivators, the two figures under everyone's gaze clashed in battle without a single word.
The onlookers noticed that without the barrier of Immortal Venerable Jinri and Immortal Lord Ziyun severing heaven and earth, Crimson Flame—who had previously been like a flickering candle in the wind, dim and on the verge of snuffing out at any second—was regaining her deep, blazing radiance at a rate visible to the naked eye.
Zhang Zhiliang had clearly noticed this immediately as well.
A profound, colossal eye abruptly manifested above his head, casting a chilling gaze directly down upon Crimson Flame.
The flickering of the flames wrapping Crimson Flame faltered slightly, though it restored itself to normal an instant later.
Yet all the watching onlookers could tell that the speed of her recovery had nonetheless been hindered.
Refusing to sit idly by awaiting death, Crimson Flame snapped her blazing fires inward, condensing back into a single crimson speck of light in the blink of an eye.
Transforming into a crimson streak across the sky, she arrived right before Zhang Zhiliang in an instant.
At the exact moment she was about to pierce through his body, tens of thousands of silver cubes formed into array ranks across the space before him.
Specks of silver light shimmered ceaselessly.
The crimson line surged relentlessly forward, determined to slay Zhang Zhiliang.
Yet a mere foot of distance seemed as distant as the ends of the earth, impossible to bridge.
It was none other than the Liangyi Microcosmic Formation previously used to trap the Immortal Lords.
Reused now, its effect remained extraordinary.
After a moment, Crimson Flame halted her futile efforts and resumed human form.
As if roaring to the heavens, she unleashed hundreds of crimson beams erupting outward from her body in an instant.
They shot violently toward different areas around her.
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
Over a hundred silver array coronets detonated in bursts of flame.
Yet...
Replacement coronets emerged from the darkness at once, instantly filling the gaps left by the destroyed ones.
Crimson Flame launched attack after attack, but the speed at which she destroyed array coronets fell far short of the speed at which Zhang Zhiliang replenished them.
And Zhang Zhiliang was hardly one to take blows without striking back.
While Crimson Flame attempted to break out of the array, the reverse spirit-gathering formation activated once more.
Within the sealed airspace, the concentration of spiritual energy plummeted once again.
Next, countless array coronets flickered in succession, laying down formation after formation within the enclosed domain.
Beams of destructive light lanced out from the array coronets, bombarding Crimson Flame continuously.
Even if she effortlessly evaded ninety-nine out of every hundred, and even if taking a direct hit caused only minor scratches, the sheer number of array coronets was overwhelming.
The destructive rays poured out without pause, as though costless.
With wounds steadily accumulating, Crimson Flame, who had barely recovered in the first place, grew even weaker.
Pity Crimson Flame: despite her boundless might, faced with this seemingly endless war of attrition, she could only lament in vain and wait helplessly for death.
Seeing Crimson Flame's figure dim more and more, some cultivators watching from the sea could no longer restrain themselves.
"Fellow Daoists, Crimson Flame is on the verge of perishing, and Zhang Zhiliang is at the end of his tether! This is a heaven-sent opportunity!"
"Indeed! Even though he is a Soul Formation cultivator, after such back-to-back fierce battles, his strength must be drastically depleted. If we swarm him together, victory is by no means impossible!"
"To achieve Dao Integration, Zhang Zhiliang openly murdered the Wanxian Island Master and provoked the dignity of the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals! His crime is unforgivable!"
"Charge, fellow Daoists!"
...
Voices rose from unknown origins, echoing above Wanxian Island.
It seemed to make perfect sense.
The cultivators exchanged glances, then looked together toward Zhang Zhiliang in the sky, his robes torn to shreds.
The silence lasted only a moment.
Before long, someone responded to the call.
A jet-black iron claw vaulted from the island, flying before Zhang Zhiliang in the blink of an eye to claw at him viciously.
Like a rallying horn, this jet-black iron claw sounded the collective crusade against Zhang Zhiliang.
In an instant, thousands of brilliant lights surged up from below, streaking skyward together.
Zhang Zhiliang's expression did not change as his gaze swept coldly across them.
His figure vanished in an instant, and tens of thousands of array coronets unleashed beams of radiance that intercepted the attacks.
"Fellow Daoists, strike that giant eye in the sky first!"
With a loud shout, another barrage of countless rays soared into the sky, rushing toward the colossal eye.
Trapped inside, Crimson Flame also seemed to see this rare opening and launched a counteroffensive.
Flames erupted ceaselessly from her body, blowing array coronets apart one after another.
Faced with the pincer attack of Crimson Flame and the other cultivators, Zhang Zhiliang gradually found it strenuous and knew he could delay no longer.
Abruptly appearing behind Crimson Flame, a silver cube materialized before him.
Then ten, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand...
But unlike before, the array coronets did not merely assemble together.
Instead, they began to fuse.
Countless silver cubes turned ethereal in an instant.
They began to superimpose upon the position of the very first array coronet.
It seemed to take only a single breath to complete the fusion.
That sky full of array coronets, once glittering like stars, was reduced to just one in an instant.
"The Infinite Method..." Li Fan's clone gazed at the glittering array coronet in the sky that faintly radiated a golden light, marveling inwardly.
A single array coronet was formed by stacking over a hundred different formations atop one another.
With Li Fan's current mastery of array Dao, he could at best barely craft half an array coronet.
Precisely because of this, he understood better than anyone just how terrifying it was for Zhang Zhiliang to so effortlessly take tens of thousands of array coronets—each already composed of hundreds of superimposed formations—and stack them once more, unifying a million into one.
'Zhang Zhiliang's mastery of formations in this life has likely reached the pinnacle of perfection, far surpassing his past life.'
The thought flashed through Li Fan's mind.
In the sky, an earth-shattering white light erupted from the fully formed golden array coronet.
"Perish!"
With Zhang Zhiliang's enraged roar, the white light drowned out everything before it.
Even from far away, the crowd could feel the terrifying destructive power within that beam of light and involuntarily halted their attacks.
'Exhausting all one million formations to unleash a final strike—a total gamble. But judging from the white light's might, Zhang Zhiliang must have succeeded, right?'
Li Fan stared intently at the sky.
The countless cultivators across the Congyun Sea held their breath as well.
The white light gradually dispersed.
Crimson Flame was nowhere to be seen.
Only Zhang Zhiliang remained, hands clasped behind his back, standing proud and aloft.
Leaping crimson flames had replaced his previously tattered robes.
The pressure belonging to a Dao Integration Immortal Venerable radiated down from high above, declaring that he, Zhang Zhiliang, had achieved Dao Integration!
A dead silence fell over the Congyun Sea.
The gaze of every living being was fixed upon him at this moment.
A smile appeared on Zhang Zhiliang's face, and his mouth parted slightly, just about to say something.
Right at this moment...
His head exploded with a boom.
The headless corpse turned slightly, as if still wanting to look around.
But specks of ink-black spread out from his wound, devouring everything.
Chapter 306