Fierce Battle

Quan Juehua teleported frenetically, launching strikes from different angles and across varying flows of time. Front and back, left and right, above and below, his figure appeared and vanished incessantly. Every slash targeted Zhang Shou's vitals. Zhang Shou's left arm was severed by a blade, his ears sheared away by saber energy, his nose shaved off, and both of his eyes burst apart under the onslaught. Fortunately, he had not regenerated his lower body; otherwise, it would in all likelihood have suffered Quan Juehua's ruthless butchery as well. Boom! The Malevolent Blade collided with the Grand Blaze Sky-Burning Saber. Quan Juehua was not irritated in the slightest. He teleported away and vanished. His comprehension of space far exceeded Zhang Shou's; he could appear without a sound and launch ambushes without the slightest ripple, whereas Zhang Shou had no way to match that. No matter how Zhang Shou teleported, Quan Juehua kept pace with ease. Furthermore, any counterattack was predicted in advance, rendering him entirely unable to inflict any harm on Quan Juehua. Had the Grand Blaze Sky-Burning Saber not protected what little remained of his body with rapidly flowing flames, he would surely have died a thousand deaths by now. Zhang Shou had completely stopped relying on his eyes to track Quan Juehua, for eyes could never keep up with Quan Juehua's speed. His consciousness sank into utter darkness, where only the flowing trajectories of blade lights drifted. When a streak of saber light suddenly emerged, he instantly twisted his remaining hand to parry the flowing gleam. Sure enough, an immense force immediately sent him flying—blade clashing once more against blade. In truth, though the chasm between them was so vast that no amount of growth could bridge it, Zhang Shou was indeed still growing. From being able to block just one of Quan Juehua's strikes, he gradually improved to blocking two, and then three. As time passed, Quan Juehua flickered and teleported ceaselessly as the Malevolent Blade repeatedly clashed with the Grand Blaze Sky-Burning Saber. The exchange grew faster and faster. Everywhere they passed was left strewn with terrifying saber energy and saber intent. If an ordinary Mighty One were merely to pass through these areas, their body would instantly be ground into mincemeat or reduced to cinders by the lingering force. "Die, die, die, die, die!" "Slash, slash, slash, slash, slash!" In the end, Quan Juehua couldn't even be bothered to teleport anymore, simply unleashing a frenzied barrage of slashes head-on. Gritting his teeth, Zhang Shou gripped the Grand Blaze Sky-Burning Saber with his lone hand, clashing against him again and again in brutal direct collisions. With every clash, sputtering flames illuminated vast swathes of the void. Though the two had initially fought in pitch-black space, now everywhere was blindingly bright. Across the myriad heavens and worlds, countless Mighty Ones watched this world-shattering battle. In the blink of an eye, Quan Juehua and Zhang Shou had traded blows for several days. Not only worlds, but even matter and energy in the surrounding expanse had been eradicated, leaving only Quan Juehua's terrifying saber energy and the blazing firelight of the Grand Blaze Sky-Burning Saber. The Mighty Ones who knew Zhang Shou were both shocked by his growth and deeply worried for him; after all, his current state was truly too tragic and gruesome. His head was stripped of eyes, nose, and ears, and his torso was reduced to what little lay above the chest. His left arm and left lung were gone; only a single right hand still gripped the Grand Blaze Sky-Burning Saber, holding out against Quan Juehua. A fair number of Mighty Ones actually wanted to help, but merely drawing slightly close, the terrifying saber energy Quan Juehua unleashed forced them to recoil in haste. They simply weren't on the same level. Just a fraction of the power leaking from Quan Juehua and Zhang Shou now was enough to turn them to ash. This was no alarmist exaggeration. In fact, a Mighty One had indeed attempted to force their way into the battlefield, only for their eyes to be incinerated just by looking at the firelight of the Grand Blaze Sky-Burning Saber, nearly costing them their life. As for who that was? Cheng Pi was fleeing at top speed toward the edge of the Fenglaixian Abyss, carrying Jin Sheng, whose eye sockets were scorched black. Setting Jin Sheng down, he immediately pulled out an assortment of medicines to treat him, all while sensing the terrifying collisions in the void. It was simply too frightening. "Old Cheng, I overestimated myself this time, dragging you into danger along with me," Jin Sheng said with a bitter smile as he regained consciousness under treatment. Cheng Pi put away the medicine and sighed. "What're you saying that for? We've been through life and death together. But Old Zhang..." "Looks like I can't keep playing house either," Jin Sheng sighed. "A Great Tang Empire or whatever is nothing more than an illusion in the end. To strike iron, one's own body must be tough." Over the years, while Nora and the others traveled the heavens aboard the Aska, he had returned to the Fenglaixian Abyss, brought countless parallel Earths under his dominion, and forged a Great Tang Empire. Today, the empire was immensely powerful and prosperous, and as its ruler, he naturally enjoyed the love and support of countless people. Yet his recent brush with death had jolted him awake. Empires and factions were utterly meaningless. At the level of a Mighty One, one had to be sufficiently powerful oneself—powerful like Zhang Shou, powerful like Quan Juehua! Otherwise, if Zhang Shou and Quan Juehua's battle drifted over here, everything he owned would vanish in smoke and ashes in an instant, and he would have no choice but to flee in terror, unable to protect a thing. Hearing Jin Sheng's words, Cheng Pi couldn't help but chuckle. "Looks like you finally got knocked to your senses." "You'd better worry about your own descendants. Are you in any position to laugh at me?" Jin Sheng said irritably. Cheng Pi was indeed with him, but Cheng Pi was completely unreliable. While Jin Sheng built the Great Tang Empire, Cheng Pi chased women, ultimately siring a huge brood of children—to the point that his eldest wives and children had already grown old and died. Even so, the Cheng family had indeed grown to preposterous proportions under Cheng Pi, ballooning to a startling scale. At a conservative estimate, his descendants numbered in the hundreds of thousands. As the two spoke, both their bodies suddenly stiffened. They simultaneously turned toward another direction. Something was approaching the battlefield, obliterating countless worlds in its wake—like a motorcycle tearing down a highway while the streetlights on both sides went dark one by one. In the void, Zhang Shou and Quan Juehua were still clashing head-on, but their conditions were night and day. Zhang Shou was burning away everything he possessed; like a lump of coal, he would sooner or later burn until not even cinders remained. Quan Juehua, on the other hand, was in pristine condition, continuously piling pressure onto Zhang Shou with heavy, crushing strikes that forced Zhang Shou to counter with everything he had. The two were like computers: Zhang Shou's hardware lagged hundreds of thousands of miles behind Quan Juehua's, yet both were currently running a massive game simultaneously. Even if Zhang Shou ran his CPU and graphics card to the point of exploding, he could only barely manage to run the game on the lowest settings. Yet just as the two were exchanging frenzied slashes, a surge of power drenched in pure madness pierced through the battlefield. A gathering storm was about to break. As Zhang Shou's saber clashed against Quan Juehua's, the flames erupting from the Grand Blaze Sky-Burning Saber began to dim. Then, both glanced toward their left. "Quan Juehua!!!!" Cloaked in pitch black, Apollo had unexpectedly reappeared. Devouring all light and heat along his path, he charged before Quan Juehua in an instant. Sun Wheel! A massive crimson ring slashed toward Quan Juehua in an instant. Quan Juehua furrowed his brow, severing the ring with a single slash, before carrying the momentum forward to cut toward Apollo—only for his blade to be intercepted by Zhang Shou's Grand Blaze Sky-Burning Saber. Although Zhang Shou didn't know why Apollo, who had supposedly been slain, was still alive, he knew perfectly well that their common goal was to kill Quan Juehua. Thus, helping Apollo was helping himself.