Chapter 722: Chu Cheng Advances (1/2)

Chapter 722: Chu Cheng Advances

When he saw the strike Lan Jue quietly nodded his head. He wasn’t the only one to advance, his companions were all getting stronger. For the Four Divine Monarchs, strength had always been a priority for each of them.

Ting! The ringing sound brought Lan Jue’s attention back to the fight.

Lan Qing had lifted his right hand and, with only his middle finger, flicked away Hades’ Falchion.

The Astrum responded with a low rumble and the whole body of the blade vibrated. Chu Cheng’s world of solemn gray grew dimmer and more obscure. In front of Lan Qing a single gray door appeared.

Another sword slash burst out from the door as it opened. From overhead Hades’ Falchion descended to join it. The two attacks supplemented each other as they raced for the center of Lan Qing’s chest.

Ting–! Lan Qing never flinched and fell back a step as his middle finger knocked the danger away. His body began to glow with a faint golden aura. The emanation of enlightenment and compassion swelled his oppressive aura at the same time.

Even from their vantage Hua Li and Lan Qing were finding it hard to breathe.

Such pressure! Hua Li even gasped audibly. What this big brother’s true strength?

Hades’ Falchion flitted through the air, coming at Lan Qing with blinding speed from every direction to try and flip passed his defenses. Lan Qing never counter-attacked, and simply flicked or slapped away the blade whenever it got close.

Still his aura strengthened. It swelled with every passing moment, rose with every breath to pulverize them in an indescribable power.

In the midst of that pressure the whole arena started to quake. Chu Cheng’s attacks had slowed as they tried to fight through the influence of Lan Qing’s emulsions.

Golden light shone brighter around Lan Qing until he was a blazing silhouette. Any time Hades’ Falchion got close it to the deathly aura it bore was dispersed. Its desperate efforts were only getting weaker.

This was clearly a one-sided contest.

“Just this and already you can’t keep up? Do you want to be a Paragon?” Lan Qing’s disdainful taunt rolled like thunder through the room.

A flash of light revealed Chu Cheng suspended in air. Lan Qing’s call had forced him to appear. His grey eyes had become a seething blood red, and he burned with pride and a thirst for victory that made his aura flare.

They all knew Lan Qing was their better, but deep in their hearts who didn’t want to put the soldier in his place?

The suffocating pressure collapsed. Chu Cheng threw his head back and released a wild scream into the air that summoned a majestic ashen aura. The influence of his power continued to spread through the area, and he slashes Hades’ Falchion held tight in his white-knuckle grip. Each vicious cut birthed a blinding flash and the shadow of strange archaic runes.

Chu Cheng himself was ripped apart. Splintering parts of himself were swallowed into the nine runes that hung in the air. As he vanished the runes overlapped one another, causing Hades’ Falchion to blaze with a staggering light before shooting ahead. A streak of burning power was left in its wake.

Lan Qing’s lips turned up in a smirk. He stamped a foot forward and punched his right hand. The surreal image of Vairochana appeared behind him. The Buddha’s resplendent light mingled with the glow of compassion from Lan Qing, and together they enveloped Hades’ Falchion.

The nine runes along the Astrum’s surface burned as it struggled against the light. Then, Lan Qing’s punch landed. First the falchion shook then thrown back. Its nine runes were shed and hung in the air.

Suddenly, everything stopped. The crushing pressure, Vairochana, Lan Qing… everything vanished without a trace. In the ensuing stillness the gray light from Hades’ Falchion bloomed. As though they were reawakened, the runes surged with pulsing waves of energy.

Chu Cheng appeared in the midst of those runes, seated cross-legged in mid-air with his eyes closed. All around him the world roiled in a state of flux. Sometimes the nightmarish image of the river Styx and its fetid, poison water prevailed. Sometimes it was a blazing sun ready to swallow the world. All throughout the gray fires of the underworld rose in staggering columns.

His powers were raging out of his control. Wild tempests of protogenia appeared and vanished in the same moment. But the period of calamity was short lived. Suddenly and with tremendous force, a pulse of pure protogenic effusion exploded through the arena. For a moment they were immersed in the underworld. Everything was drained of color, and a deathly stillness hung over everything.

Success! Lan Jue’s eyes lit up as he watched. He and Hua Li were protected beneath a shell of golden power – Lan Qing had joined them by their side.

Lan Qing had slowly built pressure since the fight’s outset. He urged on Chu Cheng’s fighting will and then – when the pressure was at its greatest – he removed it. With nothing to contend against Chu Cheng’s power gushed out to fill the vacuum and transformed him from an Adept into a Paragon.

Lan Jue smirked as he watched the dramatic display. “I’m the last one. I never thought that’d be the case.”

Hua Li’s response was less than sympathetic. “So what? You’re not a Paragon but I still struggled against you.”