Tai Wuling stared at Yan Nie, his mortal enemy. He may hate Tianyi on a personal level, but it was Yan Nie who dealt him the most harm, from attacking him in the throne hall inside the Yellow Mausoleum to causing Yang Linyin to fall into a coma. In comparison, Tianyi's actions were like a tantrum; they only angered him and were ultimately inconsequential. He was but a child that Tai Wuling would force to recognize reality. It just wasn't the time yet.
Although Yan Nie was an immortal monarch, the Divine Flame Monarch, Tai Wuling did not think he would lose. Like their first encounter, he was still a true immortal, but the difference between the current him and him of the past was like day and night.
Yan Nie possessed the superior cultivation base and mastery of the complete Law of Fire, but Tai Wuling now mastered four of the five elemental laws. All he lacked was mastery of the Law of Metal before he could complete his ascension to the Seamless Immortal Realm. Coupled with his monarch-level body, Tai Wuling had complete confidence in defeating Yan Nie.
Sparks flashed as their gazes lingered on the other. A war formation at the monarch level led by an immortal lord roared and charged past Tai Wuling toward Yan Nie. "No! Stop, you aren't his oppon—!"
Tai Wuling never had a chance to finish as a four-colored flame erupted from Yan Nie's palms. Once the flame made contact with the war formation, it erupted into a dazzling explosion, fueled by the energy maintaining the war formation.
The immortal lord and the true immortals that composed it screamed in anguish as the four-colored flame incinerated them into ash.
"Divine Flame Monarch!" Tai Wuling screamed as he charged. Four auras of red, black, yellow, and green shrouded his body. A metal staff emanating an aura of the Law of Metal appeared in his hand.
The staff was known as the White Iron Cudgel, an immortal-ranked artifact that focused on durability above all else. His master, Emperor Infinity, fashioned it using the Law of Metal to aid his comprehension.
A pitch-black spear appeared in Yan Nie's hand. The spearhead took on a fiery red color as he thrust it toward Tai Wuling. The air exploded with thunderous roars when spear met cudgel. Yan Nie's eyes widened, and his eyebrows rose when he saw Tai Wuling matching his power.
He narrowed his eyes and twisted his spear.
Tai Wuling felt the rising heat against his hands. He looked down to see the White Iron Cudgel turning red at the point the spearhead touched. He shrouded the staff in his qi, which exuded four colors. The staff took on a black sheen, and the rising temperature slowed.
Still, that was only a stalling tactic. Tai Wuling frowned. Even with his qi boosted by four worldly laws, Yan Nie's four-colored flame was actually burning it and using it as fuel. Tai Wuling flew back and disengaged, but the annoying thing was that the four-colored flame still burned his White Iron Cudgel.
Yan Nie snorted, and mirage-like armor of flames appeared all over his body. "HAH!"
Flames exploded forth and formed a ten thousand-meter-wide domain. The heat intensified, and average true immortals would shrivel into mummies in less than an hour. Even the very qi in the air evaporated and disappeared like water vapor.
Tai Wuling stopped his breathing because every time he did, he could feel a scorching pain in his nose and throat. The black color of the four colors of aura coating took predominance. Simultaneously, the aura of the water surrounding him grew stronger.
He could have unleashed his own domain based on his superior understanding of the worldly laws, but a large part of a domain's strength was the qi fueling it. In all circumstances, his immortal qi would run out first even if his domain evenly matched Yan Nie's.
Tai Wuling frowned, wondering why Yan Nie didn't chase after him. He quickly used this time to dispel the flame plaguing his White Iron Cudgel. Only then did he investigate the reason.
Yan Nie wasn't paying attention to him at all. Rather, he was staring off into the distance. Tai Wuling looked over, and what he saw made him release a guttural growl.
When Yan Nie released his domain, Xi Tianyi and the people around him didn't retreat. They just stayed next to him, and miraculously, the four-colored flame domain disappeared. No, it was more accurate to say it was negated in the area around the scion from the Buzhou Immortal Sect.
"Do you need help?" Yang Linyin asked.
"No," Tai Wuling said. "You mastered the Law of Yin, and there is no one more suited to control an emperor-level formation. Don't worry, and leave the Divine Flame Monarch to me."
Yang Linyin nodded. They led over eighty true immortals away and formed the Eight Trigrams War Formation. It was the Eight Pillar Sect's most powerful war formation and took on the form of a divination board. At its peak, it was to be able to contend with an immortal sovereign, but it would require two immortal emperors, eight immortal monarchs, and sixteen hundred true immortals.
Once Yang Linyin left, Tai Wuling charged at Yan Nie. "Where are you looking?! Your opponent is me!"
Yan Nie cast an annoyed gaze at Tai Wuling and swung his spear. Flame exploded forth and shot toward Tai Wuling.
Tai Wuling formed a hand seal with one hand. Yellow qi exploded forth and formed a shield of stone. When Yan Nie's flames made contact with the stone shield, it immediately started melting it, turning the stone into magma.
But it lasted long enough. Once it neared Yan Nie, the stone shield, or whatever remained of it, exploded, scattering the flames and magma. Yan Nie swung his spear in a circular fashion, blocking the fragments of stone and magma.
"Take this!" Tai Wuling shouted. Divine runes glowed all over his body, dramatically increasing his strength and defense.
Yan Nie grunted as he fended off Tai Wuling's flurry of blows. However, he possessed superior spearmanship than Tai Wuling's staffmanship. While he seemed on the defensive, he counterattacked for every ten blows he defended against.
Tai Wuling frowned. Each of Yan Nie's spear strikes pierced through his skin, revealing his glowing blood beneath. However, if he could not deal a decisive blow to Yan Nie, his wounds would accumulate to an irrevocable degree.
He stored the White Iron Cudgel and started attacking with his bare fist. Qi of fire, water, earth, and wood covered his arms, forming a four-element gauntlet. After he stopped using his staff, not only did his offense not decrease, but it increased threefold.
"Gah!" Yan Nie spat out a mouthful of saliva as Tai Wuling broke through his flame armor and embedded a fist into his stomach.
Before Tai Wuling could take advantage of it and unleash an explosion inside Yan Nie's body, the flame armor exploded, burning parts of Tai Wuling's skin and hair. Tai Wuling retreated and tried to disperse the qi-consuming flames.
An aura that shimmered between black and white appeared around Tai Wuling. This was the Eight Pillar Sect's Yin-Yang Reversal Technique. The four-colored flames no longer devoured his qi, but neither did it disappear either. He had wanted to reverse the process, so the four-colored flame became his fuel instead of the other way around.
Suddenly, warning bells exploded in Tai Wuling's head. He turned toward the sword to see Yan Nie controlling five differently-colored fires. All five were truefires. One, as expected of fire, released a fiery aura, but the others were uncommon. A second exuded an aura of water despite the contrary nature, the third an aura of earth, the fourth an aura of wood, and the fifth an aura of metal.
Streams from all five coalesced in front of Yan Nie into one flame of five colors. Just looking at the merger, Tai Wuling felt like something brushed against his heart, eluding him. However, what attracted his attention the most was the palpitations he felt.
Tai Wuling was sure that if he took the attack head-on, he would likely die without even a complete corpse. He abandoned the Yin-Yang Reversal Technique and charged toward Yan Nie with reckless abandon.
Yan Nie flew backward, away from Tai Wuling, but his speed was a snail's pace compared to his previous speed. He flicked his fingers, and the blackened spear pierced through the unfinished five-colored flame, coating the spearhead and shooting toward Tai Wuling.
Rings of smoke blasted from the spear as it shattered the sound barrier. Tai Wuling gritted his teeth. He knew that he would not be able to dodge, so he prepared for the worse. He reared his fist back and gathered all his qi into his fist.
Red, black, yellow, and green merged into one color. Behind him, a floating arm and fist manifested. Its skin was the color of fire, its blood the color of water, its muscles the color of wood, and its nails the color of earth. Despite its appearance, the arm was not a martial manifestation but something akin to summoning from another dimension.
"Hrah!" Tai Wuling yelled as he punched forward. Behind him, the floating arm followed suit.
For a brief moment, the manifested fist and spear entered a stalemate. In the next second, cracks appeared all over the fist and spread to the arms, but the spear flew into the distance as if it was shot from a bow. Still, the fist continued on its trajectory toward Yan Nie, who resumed fusing the five truefires.
As the fist continued onto its trajectory, a shoulder slowly materialized from the arm, albeit far more illusionary. Then, a torso and head appeared. The torso had four more stumps with missing arms, and its head was a perfect sphere that resembled the Wuxing Core in Tai Wuling's sea of consciousness. But it had five eyes, each of a different color.
The first fist gained an earthy yellow color. The second fist gained a fiery red color, the third gained a black watery color, and the fourth a woody green color.
Anyone who gazed upon it would feel their heart palpitate and feel as if they were gazing at a supreme divinity. Yan Nie was no exception, but through sheer willpower, he shouldered on and completely fused the five truefires.
"Go, Five Element World Incinerating Flame Mandala!" The five-colored flame formed a huge circular pattern, which shot forth toward Tai Wuling.
Three more arms appeared from the stumps and punched toward the Five Element World Incinerating Mandala. Unlike with the spear, when the first fist punched the mandala, it caused the latter to shudder and stall, but the former directly shattered.
The three other fists punched toward the Five Element World Incinerating Mandala too. The fire-coated fist crashed head-on and exploded, leaving a stump and weakening Yan Nie's attack. The wood fist shriveled, transferring its power to the water fist instead of hitting the attack and fueling the mandala.
When the third and final fist struck, boiling steam exploded, shrouding thousands of kilometers around it. Soon, Yan Nie's domain evaporated the mist to reveal the divinity with five arms and a floating sphere for a head disappearing into the air, returning from wherever it was summoned.
Yan Nie's domain soon evaporated the steam, revealing the Five Element World Incinerating Mandala continuing on its trajectory toward Tai Wuling. Tai Wuling gritted his teeth as he fought the fatigue. The divine runes on his body no longer shone as brilliantly as before.
Despite his best effort, he only managed to weaken Yan Nie's Five Element World Incinerating Mandala by around fifty percent. In addition, he still had not expelled the four-colored flames burning his flesh.
Tai Wuling fled as fast as he could, but the Five Element World Incinerating Mandala chased after him under Yan Nie's control. Tai Wuling searched the domain for an escape route. His eyes shone when he spotted Xi Tianyi, and he charged over without a second thought.
Xi Tianyi, who guessed his intentions, blinked. Then, the sphere of safety around him and the Buzhou Immortal Sect members slowly moved away. Tai Wuling cursed Xi Tianyi's shamelessness and shouted. "Help! As allies, we should team up and get rid of this threat!"
Tai Wuling shouted especially loudly, drawing the attention of those currently fighting. He just needed to use the alliance to pressure Xi Tianyi to help him. As he suspected, Xi Tianyi no longer retreated. Although he didn't fly over, it was more than enough for him to reach Xi Tianyi before the Five Element World Incinerating Mandala reached him.
Sparks erupted from the two's gazes as they intersected. Tai Wuling only stopped and turned around after he was behind the Buzhou Immortal Sect members. He ignored their distrustful gaze and watched as to how Xi Tianyi would deal with it.
Although he hated to admit it, Yan Nie's Five Element World Incinerating Madala easily reached the threshold of a peak immortal monarch. Faced with such an attack, he wanted to see what trump cards Xi Tianyi had.
However, he would be disappointed. Xi Tianyi raised his arms, and a black liquid flowed out from his sleeves. The liquid wasn't pure black but contained infinite motes of light, as if it was torn from the night sky. The black liquid clashed against the Five Element World Incinerating Mandala.
To Tai Wuling's shock, the Five Element World Incinerating Mandala slowly shrunk as its energy was used up. It couldn't display its signature effect of burning all things in the world to fuel itself in front of the strange water Xi Tianyi used.
Yan Nie frowned as he stared at Xi Tianyi. He never expected his prized move would be dispelled so easily. If Xi Tianyi had used some sort of treasure, he would not have thought it strange. After all, he was the son of a Sword Sovereign, so it would not be strange for him to carry some wondrous artifact or talisman.
"Divine Flame Monarch, let us assist you!" Yan Nie turned to see several immortal-level formations led by true immortals and composed of numerous earth immortals and transcending mortality saints from the Allbeast Sect backing him up.
Xi Tianyi opened his mouth, but before words could come out, Jinshu, Jadewill, Southfist, Firefly, and Shadowbark stepped forward. They placed their hands on the jewel of the belt-shaped artifact Tianyi gifted them. Then, they crossed their arms into an X-shape before slashing outward to form a T-shape.
"""TRANSFORM!!""" all five shouted.
