Within the ship, John felt as though he were standing before the sinister gate within his palace realm, only this was even worse. Had his mind and soul not been tempered by the sinister gate, he was sure he would be driven to a state of madness by the aura alone.
The others present felt the terrifying aura as well, but thanks to their formidable cultivations, they were able to resist the aura somewhat despite having no built-up resistance like John. The five gathered, as well as Lilian, flared their own aura's outwards, pushing against the sinister aura in a desperate attempt to maintain their wits and sanity.
John felt the gaze of death fall upon him, coming from high above. The Asura had finally come for him, and it was even more terrifying than he imagined. Just its aura alone was nearly enough to overwhelm him in his current state.
He turned around and looked upwards, directly through the hull of the ship. Thanks to his Dao Transformation cultivation level, peering through something like a ship's exterior was child's play. His gaze locked with the Asura, and he couldn't help but shudder. He had never feared battle, never feared death, but this was different. This was an instinctual warning, telling him to run. He resisted that warning, and kept his eyes locked with the blood red eyes of the hellish Asura.
It smiled at him, like the smile of a predator about to devour a cornered prey, one that was enjoying the hunt more than anything. It appeared the exact same as the creature he had seen in the vision Iris had shown him. It was undoubtedly the Asura of prophecy.
'I'm not even close to being able to fight this thing,' John thought, feeling completely useless. He wanted to tell Lilian to flee right now, but trusted in their plan. They would not do all this, just to sit here and wait for him to be slaughtered.
A moment after the Asura appeared, another figure stepped out from within the fractured patch of space. The spatial fracture quickly healed itself after the figure stepped out, returning that patch of sky to normal.
The Astral Emperor stared at the five with a narrowed gaze, then shifted his eyes towards the flying ship. His gaze narrowed as he stared at John for a moment, and then locked onto Lilian. She had not turned around, and had her back facing him, still standing at the ships control center.
The Astral Emperor smirked.
"How are you going to get yourselves out of this mess?" he asked them with much amusement.
Flash!
The ship flashed suddenly forward, speeding into the distance, disappearing from sight in an instant. The others watched the ship leave, the five sighing in relief as the first part of the plan had been completed, while the Asura and the Astral Emperor narrowed their gazes at the fleeing ship. The Asura and Astral Emperor raised their hands towards the distant ship.
The Grand Elder suddenly flared with power, and then the world around them did the same.
Boom!
A calamitous explosion of energy suddenly surged to the sky, coming from all directions around them. The ground lit up, shining brightly like the sun itself, as formation runes spread out in all directions, revealing an incomparably large formation circle beneath their feet. The formation circle glowed bright blue, and had tens of thousands of lines forming the complex diagrams.
The formation circle exploded with power as it instantly completed, forming six nodes each a thousand apart that flared to the sky with their power. The power coalesced in the sky, forming a solid formation barrier in all directions.
The Asura eyed the formation for a moment. The formation had activated as soon as both him and the Astral Emperor arrived. Clearly, they had been expecting his arrival, and were waiting to spring this trap.
It made no difference. The Asura snorted disdainfully and punched outwards. It was a casual movement, and yet the punch seemed to contain the weight of worlds behind it. It was as if everything in creation would be destroyed by this singular punch.
A blast of physical might pierced outwards, so powerful that even space succumbed to its power. Space shattered outwards in a line from its punch, forming a beam of fractured space in the trail of the attack. The ruinous power and beam of fractured space pierced forward towards the formation barrier, aimed directly towards the fleeing ship.
"As if I'd allow you to touch my newly appointed disciple," a powerful roar boomed out from the ground below the Asura. It shifted its gaze downwards and saw Daoist Eternal Weapon standing on the ground, directly in the path of the beam high above, his weapon smithing forging table directly in front of him.
"Bodyforge Conversion!" Daoist Eternal Weapon roared, and placed his one arm down on the forging table. His other arm gripped his forging hammer, and swung down with apocalyptic power onto the forging table.
Boom!
The world seemed to shake from the impact, sending a calamitous shockwave outwards. The shockwave was instantly shattered by the Asura's ruinous power, still piercing towards the ship in the distance.
Daoist Eternal Weapon's arm shattered from the impact, turning into a mess of bone, blood, and sinew. The ruined arm then flashed into a bloody mist, and then slammed against his body as if drawn to it, coating every inch of his skin red with blood. The blood instantly seeped into his skin, and lines quickly formed onto his body.
The lines appeared like the joints between pieces of armor, making Daoist Eternal Weapons body almost look made of plate armor itself. An incredible power suddenly surged out of his body, his power skyrocketing into the heavens. Daoist Eternal Weapons aura climbed instantly, piercing through the Peak World Expansion cultivation he was revealing, stepping into the Half-Step Holy Manifestation Realm.
Another explosion blasted outwards, this time not of energy, but of flesh and metal. Daoist Eternal Weapons body rapidly grew, rising to several hundred yards tall in an instant. His hammer, as well as his forging table grew proportionally as well, making him appear like a one-armed forging god descended on the world. The entire process happened in nearly an instant.
A fiery heat emanated off his body, hammer, and smithing table, while flames of terrifying heat flowed off his head and face, like hair made of pure fire. His eyes glowed brightly like forging furnaces, staring directly at the distant Asura. He raised his hammer high above his head.
"Forge of Desolation!" Daoist Eternal Weapon said, although with his titanic size, his words were louder than the roar of a beast.
His hammer swung downwards, like that of a moon crashing down onto the world. It slammed onto his forging table with ruinous power with enough power to shake the world for tens of thousands of miles. The ground should have shattered, the mountains should have crumbled, and the valleys should have ripped apart into chasms wider than the eye could see. But none of that happened. Instead, there was absolute silence, as if his hammer had not struck the metallic forging table at all.
The forging table lit up brightly as the hammer struck it, revealing formation lines all across the forging table, all glowing bright orange like the flames of a forge. The formation lines fell from the table and onto the side-walls supporting the table, which appeared like massive metal cliffs. Formation lines covered the walls of the formation, with an intricate circular formation at the very center of the wall facing outwards from the table.
The power of the hammer strike flooded into those formation lines and was greedily absorbed, all flowing directly towards the central formation in the very center of the wall facing outwards.
Boom!
An apocalyptic beam of fiery red Qi blasted outwards from the forging table, slamming into the blast of power the Asura had unleashed. The entire process, from the Asura punching, the Daoist Eternal Weapon unleashing his attack had happened in less than a second, but to those watching, it had almost seemed like a lifetime.
The two unstoppable powers collided, the apocalyptic explosion swallowing everything within.
