Chapter 2290 - Overcoming Tribulation
Without his lifebound beasts, Tianming's ability to fight above his level against astral gods was heavily hampered.
"Come!" Tianming's cry caused them to use even more powerful astralforce to support their own orders. While their astralforce couldn't compare to that of the Shuntian ants, its quality coupled with their self-generating orders still managed to forcefully narrow the distance between them. The three different types of order were able to hold fast against six strands of the same order from the enemy, and even push back against Shuntian Bohan, causing his expression to change.
No matter how powerful his astrons were, they weren't able to endure the infernal, genesis, and ancestral orders. When a Chaos Fiendbolt blasted toward him, he was heavily shocked to the point that he allowed the electricity to begin spreading across his body.
"You're an astral god?!" Once more, he was taken aback. Tianming's lifebound beasts were utilizing the power of order and were much more powerful than before, able to push back against him and his five ants. Oddly enough, Tianming himself didn't have any order, nor did he have a heptastar cosmic physique. The sheer unreasonability of the whole thing made Shuntian Bohan's mind spin.
He no longer cared about anything else. With him at a disadvantage in regards to order, he charged straight toward Tianming with his five ants. However, all kinds of lightning abilities, including Triworld Afterlife Halls, bombarded them nonstop, causing them to cry out in pain!
He attempted to use Shuntian Subterra to lock away Meow Meow's abilities, but Meow Meow, fueled with genesis ancestral nova source and Blitzbane, easily shattered it and continued the bombardment. The ants split up, weaving their way through the field of lightning as they approached Tianming.
"I don't care about how weird you are. I just need you to die!" Shuntian Bohan maniacally yelled.
"Astral god!" Tianming growled and turned into a mirage. There were two tiny Shuntian ants in front of him. Their size allowed them to move incredibly agilely as they opened a path for their master.
Shuntian Bohan raised his rectangular hammer high, its Falling Mass Impulse causing a black glow to cover it. It radiated shocking power!
Tianming smirked as he sent a Prime Cosmic Ring that he minimized shooting out to capture the two Shuntian ants. They spat out some sand with their ability to form some kind of shield in response, but the sand shields merely exploded when the Prime Cosmic Ring shot through them. Tianming's fine control allowed him to wrap both of the ants up in quick succession.
The piercing sound of metal resounded throughout the battlefield. The ants seemed able to endure it at first, but they quickly started squeaking from the heavy injuries. Behind them, Shuntian Bohan was even more exposed than before. Three more ants attacked Tianming from his flanks, but Ying Huo and Meow Meow came to the rescue and intercepted two of them.
Flames burned and lightning bolts crackled. Tianming saw that they were able to handle one ant on their own with effort to spare, thanks to Ji Ji's boost and their own orders. Ying Huo tore apart one of the ants, while Meow Meow bit the other helpless little creature. The ant used its tiny legs to try to push its fangs apart, only for lightning to come through the teeth. It was fried with countless lightning abilities until it was completely charred. Another ant tried to take Tianming down by fighting in concert with its master, but he used three Prime Cosmic Rings to constrict it before sending it flying away, allowing Meow Meow and Ying Huo to easily pick it out and kill it.
"It's your turn!"
Though Shuntian Bohan had maneuvered around the bombardment of abilities, he’d finally ended up becoming Tianming's prey. "Impossible!" His order had failed him, and his lifebound beasts were pushed back or killed! The tide of the battle was the complete opposite of the previous one! It was such a stark difference that his heart rate increased and his green compound eyes turned red from all the killing intent.
"You... die!" he yelled, swinging his mighty hammer down. A hundred thousand illusory mountains formed behind him as a result of the cosmic impulse in his weapon, all of them zeroing in on Tianming. The attack was a peak-level battle art!
"Even now, you still think I'm the weak link in the chain?" It was true that Tianming didn't have his own order. However, his lifebound beasts used theirs to help him resist his opponent's. With order out of the equation, he was the strongest among them.
This time around, he fused the black and gold blades into one sword. Vapor Lightning Impulse and Flint Infernal Impulse explosively clashed, generating even more power. Using the bestial strength of his Fiendsky Arm, he managed to tame the sword with rampaging energies as he executed Ninedragon Tribulation, Flameyellow Immemorial. While it wasn't a fullstella battle art, its damage potential wasn't the least bit weak. The dominant will of the flameyellow divinities gathered in Tianming's body and exploded outward as his sword struck in a rising motion. Nine dragons manifested and fused together, forming a flaming dragon sword projection.
"Is this all that an astral god is capable of?!" Tianming's faith and courage was renewed with his eighth-level power. His offensive capabilities no longer obeyed common sense. The two cosmic impulses came pouring out of the sword, supercharging the nine dragons.
Cardinal Weight and Grand-Orient Sword, both heavy weapons, clashed as the two bee-headed people met in mid air. The power of two cosmic impulses overwhelmed Shuntian Bohan, causing him to let go of his hammer, which went flying off into the distance from the opposing force. To think that Tianming's strike was so powerful that it had even left a huge gash on a cosmic artifact of that caliber!
Shuntian Bohan, having lost his weapon, was seized by the cosmic impulses that had invaded his body. The rampaging energies rushed toward his head, causing him to blank out. His compound eyes saw nothing but the gigantic sword projection and he angrily turned to glare at Tianming.
"You!" Before he could finish, his head exploded with such force that it pushed Tianming back somewhat.
"Aaaah!" At the last moment, he yelled, expressing all the unwilling frustration he had been forced to endure as both of his arms wildly flailed. Even then, he was unable to stop the Grand-Orient Sword at all.
Tianming followed up with another strike that completely obliterated the exploding bee head. The headless body that was left behind fell toward the ground, yet was he truly dead? No! Tianming knew that after obtaining a heptastar cosmic physique, the core of the body was the seven heptastar organs. As long as the organs survived, an astral god wouldn’t truly die. If the organs weren’t exterminated in quick succession, astral gods could even regrow their heads—they were no longer made of albi, but rather astrons.
Tianming gave chase and pierced Shuntian Bohan's body from behind. His Imperial Sword Prison entered his body, gathering around the six remaining astral organs to truly kill him for good. Right before the clash, the headless body of Shuntian Bohan even tried fighting back, but the Imperial Sword Prison made short work of the remaining organs and ended his life for good.
Thus, Shuntian Bohan became the first astral god Tianming had slain.
"Astral gods can definitely be considered advanced cosmic deities. Their vitality is far too strong. Even using face reveal, mysterians would only have a small part of an astral god's capabilities." The transformation of albi into astrons was far too mysterious. Without his Imperial Sword Prison technique, Tianming would have to crush those astral organs one after another, including the seventh, which was the genitalia. That would make it a little awkward.
"There's still a few Shuntian ants!" Tianming turned back in a hurry, only to see one final ant charging toward him! It tried to throw him like before, but Tianming spotted it and used Delayed Capture. A lightning-fast sword strike cut the heavily injured insect into two halves. Tianming gave chase and exterminated its heptastar organs as well, letting the ant draw its final breath.
While it was small, it still had a full set of heptastar organs. Albusbeasts like them had just as many albi or astrons as their beastmasters, they were just concentrated in a much higher density. It was just like how Lan Huang had a similar number of albi as Ying Huo, though they were individually much larger.
The Shuntian ant experienced the finality of death once its heptastar organs were properly eradicated. It had already lost two of its fellow insect comrades to Ying Huo and Meow Meow's abilities. The final two were struggling and shrieking in vain, still constricted by the Prime Cosmic Rings.
"Lin Feng, the Shuntian Clan will make the Swordgod Lin Clan pay for your murder of Shuntian Bohan!" cried one of the ants.
"Shhh, don't get the facts wrong. He was the one that tried to kill me." A lifebound beast was pointless once the master was gone, so Tianming decided to end their lives.
Shuntian Bohan's entire group had finally been eliminated. Tianming didn't forget to take his spatial ring as well; it contained the ordered manna he had brought with him. Then he saw the broken Oldgod Ring that he had worn. It had been crushed in the first strike. The second strike was the one that had ended Shuntian Bohan's life for good.
"Since we're in an ancestral world, Ebonia shouldn't be able to see what happens here, right?" He didn't have an answer to that question for certain, so he wasn't aware that people in the Infinitum Swordsea and Albuon were in shock at seeing a god kill an astral god. Nothing had shaken Ebonia so much before this and Tianming stood in the limelight once more, having overcome an impossible tribulation.
"Huh?" Tianming noticed two changes once he killed his opponent. First, his appearance had returned to normal, much to his relief. Second, his ranking had risen.
"Wait, so our battles are still being acknowledged by the Infinitum Stele?" Didn't that mean everyone in Ebonia could see what was going on in there? "I guess it doesn't matter. Everyone else is frightened by the bee heads so I'm sure Shuntian Bohan is only one of the many casualties."
Not to mention, Tianming had given him a choice to let him go. The choice wasn't his to make to begin with. People inside the nest seemed to have gone insane from the sheer oddity of everything that was happening.
Tianming looked around him, wondering where he should go after killing his opponent. Who was in control of their fates now?
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