The headless body of Zu Zun fell with a despondent air.
"NO!" Through gritted, bloody, and trembling teeth was a low shout of pain and anger. Bei Yunhan coldly watched as Zu Zun was taken down and his emotions resembled a volcano on the verge of eruption, ready to explode! However, he calmed himself down with every last ounce of his self-control and kept the threats at bay with rapid-fire shots of his shortbow that pierced through space, mana, and air with sharp precision.
Zen's descendant shrugged her shoulder and head as she fled backward, repeatedly using her scaly hands to form hand-seals that assisted in dispersing the demonic aura that had seeped within her flesh and blood. She gazed at Zu Zun's body as it was enveloped by the aura from the Mark of Ascendants and abruptly vanished. She sighed in relief, but just as she did, she felt a sensation of incomparable lethal danger.
Her reptilian eyes constricted to their limits; the feeling caused her to turn her gaze toward Bei Yunhan who was now pointing his shortbow toward her, pulling the string to its fullest, and with eyes as cold as a never-ending, ice-age plunging blizzard. From his neck, roots kept growing and squirming about, siphoning his innate energies and disrupting his aura.
"Sorry, Li Yungu. I can't hold on, but before I fall, I'll take this one problem off your plate." The human Ascendant named Bei Yunhan was subjected to an attack from all sides and rapidly expanded his various forces to their limits-he was at his limit. The task of fending off Ascended and Ascendant alike was already a tall task, and while he was impressive, what Ascendant wasn't equally as terrifying?
With heavy, smoky breath, the hundreds of spatial rings around his neck and tied about his body began to intensely glow.
Zen's descendant's heart experienced heaven-shaking palpitations.
"You!" She didn't even hesitate to halt the dispersal of the invasive demonic aura as she summoned forth her greatest strength, conjuring a large, sky-covering tortoiseshell! Her expression violently paled as she put forth the majority of her starforce and blood energies in this defensive Spiritual Art of the Martial Way!
She titled the shell towards the sky.
Bei Yunhan bitterly smiled, yet the coldness in his eyes didn't lessen in the slightest. He lifted his bow to the sky and whispered to the heavens: "Hell Rain Cascade!" When he said those words, he let loose his shortbow's string, and each spatial ring seemed to burst with resplendent light.
Blotted.
"What in the heavens?" Those from the World Beyond were fighting against these three experts from different races with strange origins largely due to the fact the others were utterly relentless in assaulting them as well. They didn't fully understand the why, but the urgency in the air was tangible. They could only determine that the female elf with silver-rimmed glasses and dark hair was trying to establish a formation.
They were merely acting because it felt like the correct thing to do. Fortunately, their instincts weren't wrong at all!
However, Bei Yunhan let loose a shot with his shortbow and the entire sky suddenly darkened. They looked at the sky above and could no longer see any stars or the aurora borealis!
"Ar-ARROWS!" One of the observing Earthly Saints exclaimed as they hurriedly reacted, retreating with their allies without hesitation. They conjured their Mystic Ward and urged their mystic power to its limits, blazing across the air like a raging comet.
They had seen millions of arrows in the sky, all falling at this moment as if sent down by the heavens themselves! They each exuded a sharpness that rent spiritual sense, causing those with weaker spiritual sense to only see a large shadow engulf the sky with their visual perception and not the piercing arrows coming down!
Fortunately for them, the arrows were not descending upon them!
Unfortunately for Zen's descendant, the arrows were descending upon her!
DOOSH! DOOSH! DOOSH!
A series of endlessly dull thumps slammed against the world as arrows fell seemingly endlessly from the sky. Her tortoiseshell withstood the first few tens of thousands as her eyes, nose, and ears bled from the impacts. But after a few more...
CRACK!CRACK!!BOOOOOOM!!!
The shell exploded and she was unable to even scream before her body was torn asunder by the endless descent of arrows. From amidst the storm of hellish arrows, a burst of aura from the Mark of Ascendants flared where her otherwise shredded corpse would be, and she vanished.
Meanwhile, Bei Yunhan was forced to take the brunt of several Spiritual Spells. His eyes were clouded by verdant green light as the edges of his eyes grew root-like veins, and his body's skin gradually lost its color.
With his stance of shooting an arrow, Bei Yunhan succumbed to the terrifying spiritual assault, and his life aura dispersed entirely. The Mark of Ascendant's aura surged once more, and his body vanished as he, too, was eliminated.
Li Yungu was midway into completing her third hand-seal.
While it took a long time to describe these events, that was because it was a long time for them to be enacted for cultivators of their level! Li Yungu was currently two minutes and a half into forming her hand-seals! The duo of Zu Zun and Bei Yunhan had valiantly kept off all enemies with great success for an unimaginably long time!!
While they both fell in the end, their efforts were commendable, and even the Ascendants who were watching were utterly shaken by these two long-time members' strengths. The Chosen from the World Beyond was also shaken by how these two mortals fought and resisted their combined assault.
"Stop her!" The Ascendants did not dwell for long as one of the members of the First Legion, who had often fought alongside Li Yungu, shouted urgently as they unleashed their astral force and sent out a blast of raging wind force that smashed against Li Yungu's defenses. It rippled slightly but nothing more.
The Ascendant was at the Timelord, so their attack was unable to be pierced through Li Yungu's two-seal defense.
"Stop her? Why are we doing this, exactly?!" A female Demi-Mortal Lord of the Celestial Race didn't quite understand why, but she didn't hesitate to gather her mystic power and send over a metallic sword light that sliced forward with domineering power. However, it was also halted, pretty much doing similar damage as the Timelord of the Ascendant.
"Useless!" The Ascendant yelled in frustration as they kept launching attack after attack. The urgency of their expression was outright terrifying. If Li Yungu succeeded, she was bound to slay him immediately after.
The Starlords of the Ascendants all took action too, totalling in the thousands! The vast majority of them were Realmlords and Timelords, with a few Starlords among them, all of whom summoned their World-Bound Star Domains. The sky was filled with colorful solar stars that painted the atmosphere in a myriad of vibrant and dull colors.
Li Yungu was like an immovable, invincible object as she slowly formed her third hand-seal. All sorts of Spiritual Arts and Spells were unleashed that collided violently with her defensive ward inducing eardrum-erupting explosions. At this point, no one asked why they wanted to stop Li Yungu. The question was...could they even stop her?!
"Use your strongest means! She's drawing strength from the world! We have to exceed its momentary limit and breach!!" The Ascendant that shouted earlier screamed as they erupted with greater power, their expressions extremely pale. Even if this cost him the chance of contesting for the Evercrown, the Ascendant just wanted to stay alive and fight for other opportunities. But Li Yungu was notoriously ruthless and vengeful, even a little twisted. He dreaded what would happen if she succeeded.
"Damnit!" An Earthly Saint felt that Li Yungu's aura was rising mysteriously, but they didn't want to make an appearance yet due to not fully understanding the situation. They could tell she was deploying a formation of some sort, but when the Ascendant shouted that she was drawing strength from the World, their eyes widened as they glanced at the flags.
Not a formation...
...An Array?
AN ARRAY?!?!
But an array took an enormous amount of time to establish! It wasn't something one could do in a few minutes, and this was knowledge that most understood. While a formation can draw power from objects, an array can draw power from worlds and realms. Instinctively, they executed a few ocular spells in succession to locate a few worldly veins of the world, and they couldn't determine where they were.
Simply put, they didn't have the means to find them!
But Li Yungu found it? Did the other mortals also find it as well?!
Suddenly, the Earthly Saint recalled the bestial mutant that slayed so many, barely escaping with their lives, and the ridiculous thought that Li Yungu wasn't the only one who found an intricately innate vein of the world, but she was the fastest to establish herself there!
They decided to intervene.
"Fuck!" The Ascendant that was the loudest suddenly shouted as Li Yungu completed her third hand-seal.
BOOOOOOSH!!!
A tempest of World Pressure erupted that deflected all the attacks. Hundreds of esoteric runes littered her body as she exuded a brilliant light. She was using the array as a connector as herself as the core of the formation, using her Domain Seed to include the world itself as a part of her domain!
She had just completed the initial step and her power was now at an absurd level.
Li Yungu opened her serene eyes, there was a brewing storm within, and they locked onto the loudest Ascendant who was frantically retreating with a Spiritual Art with an Environmental Integration Art together, trying to avoid being sensed. But they were now in her domain, so there was nowhere they could hide.
She pointed her finger toward the fleeing figure and the entire world shook violently. A gushing storm of World Pressure rose from beneath them and they were instantly caught. She began to bend her finger downwards. But shockingly, they executed a few hand-seals in their entrapped state and dispersed like a yin ghost meeting a yang flame.
At the last moment, a faint silhouette of a pellet could be seen in his glabella!
Li Yungu's exquisitely trimmed brows furrowed tightly and her sharply pointed ears shook. They were all Ascendants under the Ascendant Emperor of Neo-Dawn and their means and methods were not ordinary at all, especially since they could fight and earn all sorts of pellets, talismans, and armaments. She felt seething rage in her heart at being unable to immediately deal with that loudmouth.
"HA!" A breathy exclamation of exertion resounded as Li Yungu was forced to change her focus as an Earthly Saint unleashed an Ascension Art her way. She pressed her palm toward the world-ending attack and a spherical barrier formed of World Pressure and Worldly Power. Her Worldly Domain was being integrated with one of the world's source powers, and this elevated her strength to an extreme. Not even Earthly Saints were enough to deal with her.
The Ascension Art was easily dealt with causing the Earthly Saint to stagger in disbelief. Then, and only then, did the Chosen from the World Beyond finally realize why these mortals were so frantically urgent with dealing with Li Yungu as if their lives were on the line!
Li Yungu, however, wasn't stupid enough to delay. She established her strongest defensive means and started on her fourth hand-seal, trying to activate her fourth array flag and connect to another of the world's veins of essence and energy that led to its core. There were millions of these veins scattered throughout these vast lands, but she was trying to connect to the thickest and closest thirteen because she didn't have enough flags to establish more.
Just three was enough to bring her into a near-invincible position. If she fully connected to all thirteen, the Evercrown was pretty much hers. Just one more! With that, she could establish the firmest defensive barrier that even the top Earthly Saints made by the Sealed Regions would find it difficult to breach. Her array flags were not ordinary and neither was her talent with formations and arrays!
The Earthly Saint and numerous others formed a hasty, unspoken alliance as they began to launch attacks from every direction. The bombarding left the world in utter chaos as explosions erupted endlessly, yet Li Yungu's defensive barrier formed from World Power and released World Pressure stood strong.
A tinge of despair began to surge in their hearts.
"You are exceptional." A majestic, imperialistic voice descended from the heavens as a starry light overtook the heavens, pushing away the solar light from the dozens of Solar Stars up above.
"GO!" A great goddess-like figure that seemed to reign supreme over the vast starry skies arrived, and they violently threw out a ray of endlessly brilliant light that seemed to contain unfathomably bright and colorful stars. The light pierced through the sky, sundering the World Pressure as if it was hot butter meeting a sharp blade, and the light arrived directly before Li Yungu's barrier.
Li Yungu's eyes widened slightly as she looked on with frustration, deploying her greatest strength to resist the ray of starry light. The sputter of sparks kept exploding outwards as if they were solar stars themselves.
A gorgeously feminine figure with long, spiky hair that extended beyond their feet, seemed to embody endless stars and the cosmic grace, ruling over all of heaven and earth, and they pressed their palm down as if delivering an Imperial Edict.
"Pierce." A single word and it was as if a Monarch of the Vast Heavens had given an irresistible command. Not even the defensive barrier could refute its power and it was viciously suppressed and contorted as...
PIERCE!
The starry light breached the defensive barrier and Li Yungu couldn't even speak or grunt before the starry light ran through her. Her body jolted back as she was plunged into the ground face-up, her chest outwards and her legs weak and bent as she looked at the sky, defeated. The light in her eyes had already vanished entirely as fragments of her silver-rimmed glasses collapsed.
She was dead.
The World Pressure instantly vanished; the starry light soon took shape, allowing others to see that it was a halberd. With a wave of her hand, the starry goddess called back the halberd and her form regained a form of normalcy.
A few Chosen from the Sealed Regions instantly recognized her!
The Eternal Monarch Saintess!
Wu Baozhai!
Before they could speculate, Wu Baozhai swept her gaze across the entire world and she stated: "Anyone who dares to establish an array will die!" Her tone was flat and unquestionable. Then, she calmly turned away, transforming into a starry comet that vanished into the distance.
