In truth, Apollo knew very well that he was no match for Quan Juehua.
After all, he was acutely aware of how much progress he had made, and factoring in the circumstances of his younger brother Robos, he knew full well that even a hundred of himself would never defeat Quan Juehua.
Yet being unable to win did not mean abandoning vengeance.
On the contrary, he resolved to hound Quan Juehua day and night, pursuing vengeance unceasingly, grasping at any and all means to take his revenge.
In the end, he had indeed found a way in one of the worlds across the myriad realms: Great Sun Nirvana. This was a secret rule-based technique that allowed him to split his spiritual spark and plant the fragments into various stars, thereby granting him continuous resurrection.
Great Sun Nirvana would resurrect him according to the order in which the spiritual sparks were planted. For instance, after his original body perished, the first planted spark would absorb the power of an entire star to bring him back to life.
If that body died again, the second planted spark would take effect, reviving him once more.
With each resurrection, he retained his status as a Mighty One, but the energy within his body required time to recover—which was why he had taken so long to return.
As soon as his internal energy had mostly recovered, he charged straight back into the fray. After all, with Zhang Shou to coordinate with now, the chances of vengeance were undoubtedly higher.
Yet while Great Sun Nirvana allowed him to revive—granting him near-immortality as long as spark fragments remained—it carried a fatal flaw: each spark fragment was completely consumed upon resurrection.
This meant that if he were truly killed to the end, he would truly never be reborn, devoid of any chance to start over.
At present, he had divided his spiritual spark into nine portions. Counting his original body, he possessed a total of nine lives. Thus, he had to kill Quan Juehua at any cost and by any means necessary.
"Sun Annihilation!"
Seizing the moment when Quan Juehua's blade was parried by Zhang Shou's Grand Blaze Sky-Burning Saber, Apollo thrust a hand toward Quan Juehua, a black sun instantly manifesting in his palm.
Yet when this black sun slammed into Quan Juehua, it failed to breach even the energy barrier Quan Juehua had erected to resist the burning power of the Grand Blaze Sky-Burning Saber.
"Your aura hardly matches your strength. Let me see... what trump card you're hiding!" Quan Juehua shoved hard, directly blasting Zhang Shou backward.
Then, with one hand, he seized Apollo by the throat.
He had actually manipulated differential time flow to accelerate himself silently, moving so fast that neither Zhang Shou nor Apollo could react in time.
The premonition of an impending storm could not be mistaken.
Quan Juehua narrowed his eyes at Apollo's abdomen. Suddenly, an eye tore open across Apollo's belly.
Pitch-black without the slightest glint of light, this eye radiated endless malice toward all creation, as though it were the darkness of all darknesses, the evil of all evils, the fountainhead of dread!
The next second, this eye rapidly spread across Apollo's entire body. As if flayed, Apollo's entire being turned inside out, forming a gory, blood-drenched humanoid figure.
The moment the figure turned inside out, Quan Juehua released his grip and backed away slightly. Looking at the silhouette, he wore an amused smile and said, "So it's you... an archdemon!"
"Roar!"
This archdemon clearly had something wrong with it.
It did not speak with Quan Juehua, only unleashing a monstrous roar.
In the next instant, it swept an arm toward Quan Juehua. The arm elongated segment by segment, sweeping across Quan Juehua's original position in a flash. Quan Juehua, however, had already teleported away. Not only did the strike miss him, but the momentum spun around, wrapping the lengthened arm around the archdemon's own waist.
"So it's the Ultimate Intent Demon Nurturing Art! Heheheheheh... Hahahahahah!" Watching the archdemon, Quan Juehua suddenly burst into wild laughter.
The reason was simple: he was the one who had created and disseminated this technique!
It was said that someone had once concocted some kind of Tribulation Art based on this technique of his, while someone else had come up with something called the Demon Invocation Scripture.
This technique could indeed cause one's strength to skyrocket, but the inevitable outcome was being supplanted by an archdemon.
However, this archdemon was not a complete archdemon, but an incomplete one born from the absorption of negative emotions. A normal archdemon, no matter how weak, possessed intellect and could inherit a vast amount of knowledge lingering within the Tree Universe, granting it awareness of countless secrets.
Yet an archdemon spawned by the Ultimate Intent Demon Nurturing Art was merely a creature of extreme emotions, built from archetypal energies such as killing intent and hatred.
As for why Quan Juehua had created this technique in the first place?
That was because, during a certain era, he had discovered that archdemons were delicious. But archdemons were exceedingly rare. So he had created this art and scattered it across the myriad worlds, letting the 'lucky ones' who stumbled upon it cultivate it and nurture archdemons. In the end, he would swoop in, capture the archdemons in one fell swoop, and cook them into sumptuous delicacies.
It had to be said that Apollo had nurtured this archdemon exceptionally well. It was composed entirely of a sliver of hatred and ninety-nine percent killing intent. The sheer terror of that killing intent struck even Quan Juehua as bordering on the absurd.
In truth, the primary reason Apollo had been able to nurture this archdemon was that across the myriad worlds right now, slaughter and battles to the death raged everywhere in the struggle for the Calamity Origin.
Throughout all the heavens and myriad realms, the prevailing killing intent was simply too colossal.
Originally, the Ultimate Intent Demon Nurturing Art would never produce any outward physical signs on a practitioner's body. But because this archdemon had been nurtured so thoroughly, an archdemon's eye had actually grown on Apollo's abdomen.
Ultimately, under Quan Juehua's deliberate prodding, Apollo could no longer suppress the Killing Intent Archdemon, causing it to instantly take him over.
"Roar!"
As Quan Juehua laughed madly, the Killing Intent Archdemon's body contorted and deformed. Terrifying killing intent coalesced into a sun of killing intent, which it hurled downward at Quan Juehua in an instant.
Suddenly, Quan Juehua vanished, teleporting behind the Killing Intent Archdemon, his long blade slashing toward it.
Mid-swing, however, he frowned slightly and altered the trajectory of his blade, slashing upward in an instant. Zhang Shou had teleported in, and their blades clashed right on cue.
Unlike Quan Juehua, whose teleports left not a trace, Zhang Shou's teleports still produced the faintest fluctuation of rules. Thus, Quan Juehua could track Zhang Shou's trajectory every time.
The trouble was that there was still a Killing Intent Archdemon beside him.
As Zhang Shou and Quan Juehua's blades collided, the Killing Intent Archdemon drove a fist into Quan Juehua's abdomen. The terrifying killing intent punched straight through his energy barrier and blasted into Quan Juehua's body, instantly shredding his internal organs.
This was undoubtedly the heaviest injury he had sustained since fully recovering from his previous wounds.
Quan Juehua did not spit blood; his body merely shuddered with an imperceptible tremor. Then, the look in his eyes changed. He was going to get serious.
Not that he hadn't been serious before, but rather not serious enough. If he had only brought five percent of his commitment to his duel with Zhang Shou, he was now ready to play for keeps.
Chapter 732