John's gaze narrowed as he stared at Zeras.
That attack was nearly on the same level as his lightning blasts that fused the Dao's of Lightning and Power, and it had been unleashed with complete ease. Not only that, but John could tell that the attack was not the result of a Dao fusion, but was comprised of a single source of unknown energy.
While his Qi quantity and quality was higher than Zeras', the difference was bridged by Zeras' staggering comprehension, as well as the profound nature of the energy he had unleashed.
"What was that energy?" John couldn't help but ask, although he didn't expect a reply from his master.
In the arena, Lua grimaced and then bit her lip, drawing blood from it. She reached out and touched the blood, which flowed onto her hand and formed a small ball of blood. The ball of blood then exploded, shooting out a thousand different drops of blood in all directions.
The drops stopped at random intervals in the arena and hovered in the air. Zeras watched on with amusement as Lua took action, and did not interrupt her battle art. Lua once again frowned at Zeras' disrespect, and then activated both her essence Qi and soul-power at the same time.
The essence Qi flooded into the drops of blood and was greedily absorbed. The blood drops then quickly grew in size, and to everyone's surprise, quickly formed the identical image of Lua herself. In the blink of an eye, a thousand Lua's had filled the arena, indistinguishable from one another. The Lua's then began to move around the arena, making the original one impossible to track.
At the same time, Lua's powerful soul-aura flooded the arena as well and enveloped Zeras within. John felt a remnant of the soul-aura seep through the protective formations and assault his mind, and felt as if he were trying to be lulled into a sleep-like state, where illusions were indistinguishable from what was real. While he was easily able to resist the soul effects, he was sure what Zeras was feeling was many, many times stronger than what he was feeling.
Zeras smiled as he watched Lua's preparation be completed, his gaze shifting in all directions as he studied the thousand different Lua's. He then nodded his head, his expression clearly one of being impressed by the art.
"Not bad Lua," Zeras praised her. "Even I cannot tell which one is the real you."
"Just you wait. This battle won't be as easy as you think it will be," the thousand Lua's sneered in unison, each emanating a frightening lethality. It was unknown if the other Lua's posed any grave danger to Zeras or not, but that didn't matter. As long as her art allowed her main body to get close to him, she would be able to land the finishing blow. "
Upon saying that, Lua's power activated further, and the thousand Lua's all vanished from sight, similar to how she had done before.
"What? She can use that stealth art on all her clones?" John exclaimed, truly surprised, as well impressed by Lua's battle arts. She had instantly revealed that she was truly worthy of being one of the most talented World Expansion geniuses in the world, and this was just using her power as a Heaven Tribulation cultivator. Just what was her full power like, John wondered.
Zeras once again nodded his head, impressed with Lua's arts. The smile grew slightly on his face and he raised his weapon outwards before him as he finally took his opponent seriously.
"Your power truly deserves my full attention," Zeras said as he felt the stealthed Lua's race towards him.
And then he activated his power; a power that John couldn't help but shiver as he felt it. For one of the few times in his life, his instincts flared with grave warning. Zeras was an opponent on his level, despite the fact that his cultivation was restricted to the Heaven Tribulation realm.
Boom!
Zeras' aura boomed out, flooding the arena like a tempest of destruction, slamming against Lua and forcing her weaker clones to shield themselves against the tempest, interrupting their assault. The tempest appeared for a short while and then withdrew into his body and vanished, as if it had never existed at all. The crystal orb on his weapon began to glow, its brightness intensifying to a staggering degree.
At the same time, a shocking power began to emanate from within Zeras, far stronger than the tempest from before. It was as if a bomb was being formed within Zeras himself, about to explode from within.
'A War Mage!' John exclaimed internally, instantly recognizing what Zeras was doing. He was no doubt about to unleash a channeled art, one that he had channeled while holding Lua back with the tempest he had unleashed before.
Zeras waved his weapon out before him, and dozens of small points of light appeared all around the arena. The points of light quickly grew into massive balls of pure energy, as if a dozen suns had suddenly materialized.
Feeling the lethal danger of the battle art, Lua had attempted to rush towards Zeras before he activated it, but the scorching heat surrounding Zeras made her unable to approach. While she would be able to, her clones would not be able to resist the terrifying heat, and thus would render her battle art useless. The balls of energy quickly grew and moved outwards away from Zeras, completely engulfing the arena with a horrifying heat.
"Astral energy," Lilian finally spoke, answering John's question from a while back. John shifted his gaze from the horrifyingly powerful balls of energy to his master, whose gaze had become grave itself.
"The Dao Zeras specializes the most in is the Astral Dao," she said softly.
"Storm of Stars," Zeras said calmly, his voice seeming to reverberate through the arena, as profound as the stars themselves. The dozen miniature stars suddenly exploded outwards without warning, engulfing the entire hundred-mile wide arena with apocalyptic power.
Boom!
