Chapter 1073: Chapter 1073: Immaculate Divine Body vs Annihilation
Staring at the wine bottle floating in midair, Pei Yan didn’t dare get too close. He’d just advanced in rank, and who knew if this wine would still have an effect on him. If he got caught by it now, then all his efforts would really have gone down the drain.
But according to Lin Junzhao, this wine was indeed a good thing. Whether he used it himself in the future or gave it to a friend in need, it would work wonders. Thinking of this, Pei Yan wrapped the bottle in source energy, shook it at Di Xin in the distance, and laughed: "Thanks for the good wine. I’ll make sure to put it to good use someday!"
"Pff~!" Looking at the smug grin on that punchable face of Pei Yan’s, Di Xin felt the heartache and grief of having tried to steal a chicken only to lose the rice as well. The emotional backlash tugged at his wounds, and he spewed another mouthful of clotted blood.
"Pei Yan!"
Hearing the shout, Pei Yan turned his head toward the voice. Nero, who had been punched by him into a pile of shattered rocks, shoved aside the rubble pressing down on him. Those scarlet beast-like eyes glared at Pei Yan as he ground out, word by word: "You’re very strong. Your strength exceeded my expectations. But the winner of today’s match will only be Bloodshred! Even if I die, I’ll drag you down to Hell with me!"
"Oh? Then come try."
"Immaculate Divine Body!" Pei Yan’s nonchalant reply jabbed at Nero’s already fraying nerves, pushing him to make up his mind for a final fight to the death. With a furious roar, all the grotesque faces covering his skin began to fade with the brilliant radiance blooming from his body, gradually thinning out and disappearing. The pitted, ashen, nausea-inducing skin from before turned smooth and pale, delicate like porcelain. The overly swollen muscles all over his body also receded, stopping only when his figure reverted to its most perfect proportions.
After this transformation, not only did all the wounds from fighting Pei Yan vanish without a trace, but Nero, restored to his original appearance, was even more handsome than before. Wrapped in a gentle white glow, he actually exuded a faint sense of holiness, making people feel an impulse to kneel and worship.
"Pei Yan, are you ready to fight a god?" Nero, who had forcibly pushed his bloodline to its limit and driven his Body Refining Technique to the extreme, slowly opened his eyes and looked down at Pei Yan with a mocking challenge.
"So this ’god’ thing you’re talking about... is just turning on a beauty filter?" Pei Yan took in Nero’s newly beautified face, shrugged, and couldn’t help but snark.
"Such arrogant nonsense! Prepare to die!"
"Annihilation!" The moment Nero sneered and his figure vanished from where he stood, the smile on Pei Yan’s face also disappeared. He raised his arm, pointed at the air in front of him, and tapped.
Panic. A terror unlike anything he’d ever felt before slammed into Nero’s heart! Locked dead-on by Pei Yan’s fingertip, he could clearly sense the horrifying energy about to erupt from the other’s body. The most primal instinct buried in his various bloodlines—an instinct that sensed threats to his life—warned him in no uncertain terms that if this power hit him, there was only one outcome: death.
Why? Why?! He was clearly already at great completion in Body Refinement! So why was he still this afraid of one single attack? Nero was unwilling. He had the guts to die together with Pei Yan—but that was on the premise that Pei Yan would die with him. If it was just a one-sided execution, he wasn’t stupid enough to throw his life away for nothing.
His vital energy, the space around him, his angle of movement—everything was locked down. There was no way to dodge! If he couldn’t waste his own life, then he could only waste someone else’s. At this point, the two fellow disciples who’d already lost all combat strength still had one last bit of value Nero could squeeze out of them.
"Nero! You bastard!"
"I’m going to kill you!"
Two curses rang out from Di Xin and Ivan as they were abruptly yanked from where they lay and dragged in front of Nero as meat shields. The next second, both curses cut off mid-sentence.
Very few people outside the arena saw what had actually happened. Most only saw that a moment ago Nero had still been looking high and mighty and unstoppable, but when his figure appeared in front of Pei Yan, he hadn’t even launched an attack before he suddenly retreated in sheer terror. At the same time, his two teammates at his sides were forcibly dragged in front of him. Then a gentle ray of light passed through all three of their bodies.
No explosion, no violent shockwave, not even a fluctuation of source energy. Everything looked so ordinary. But right after the light passed through, half of Di Xin’s body began to crumble into ashes, while one of Ivan’s limbs started to crack apart. Even Nero, who was at the very back and barely touched by it, watched as the hand he’d used to block dissolved into nothing.
"What the hell is this ability?!" Nero stared as the spreading disintegration crawled up from his hand. No matter how he tried to repair it with source energy, it was useless. In the end, he was still a ruthless figure who understood the logic of a venomous snake biting off its own tail and a warrior cutting off his arm to survive. Nero made a snap decision, chopped down with a hand-knife, and severed his own arm. Watching the detached limb hit the ground and dissipate into nothing, then glancing at the stump where the disintegration had stopped spreading, Nero finally let out a breath and felt a bit of lucky relief.
At the same time, Ivan and Di Xin realized the same thing. Ivan was relatively fortunate; by sacrificing one arm and one leg, he barely managed to keep his life. Di Xin, though, was miserable. Already gravely injured before this, he now lost half of his body. Although he had stopped the spread of the disintegration, he also completely lost the ability to move and could only lie on the ground, clinging desperately to life.
"What the hell is this ability?! Why can’t I reconstruct my body?!" Lying on the ground with only one hand left, Di Xin pounded the floor and roared. With his powerful self-healing ability, even after halting the disintegration he still couldn’t regenerate the parts that had vanished. That made him feel a fear of this power that came from the very depths of his soul.
He wasn’t the only one. Ivan, who’d collapsed beside him, and Nero, who’d lost an arm, also couldn’t heal the parts affected by Pei Yan’s power. Nero discovered that whenever he tried to forcibly regenerate the missing body tissue, the gathered flesh and source energy would automatically dissipate into the void. No matter how much he gathered, it was useless; it always ended in failure.
"Don’t bother trying. The power this move originally unleashed could’ve ground this entire place flat a few hundred times over. Because of the limits of my current strength, what I can do now is only shave away everything this ability touches. The reduced might is exchanged for complete annihilation. The parts of your bodies that disappeared have been utterly erased from this world. Whether it’s self-healing or time reversal, nothing can bring them back."
Pei Yan looked at the three of them staring at him in terror, stretched lazily, and smiled. "You know, Hell isn’t exactly a nice place. Why do people keep trying to drag me along for a visit? Honestly, if I really had to go, I’d at least pick some gentle, like-minded, cute little girl to go with." Saying this, Pei Yan glanced at Nero to the side and mocked, "As for you—needing a beauty filter just to dare show your face, and stabbing your own teammates at the drop of a hat—forget it. This one-way ticket to Hell, I’ll give the three of you a group discount. How about that?"
